The Directv Group, Inc.

Dtvg Licensing, Inc.

University System of Maryland

Hughes Electronics Corporation

Yimin Jiang

Lin-Nan Lee

Feng-Wen Sun

Neal David Becker

Mustafa Eroz

John S Baras

Robert L Richmond

Junfeng Gu

Farhad Verahrami

An approach is provided for supporting carrier synchronization in a digital broadcast and interactive system. A carrier synchronization module receives one or more signals representing a frame that includes one or more overhead fields (e.g., preamble and optional pilot blocks and one or multiple segments separated by pilot blocks). The module estimates carrier frequency and phase on a segment by segment basis and tracks frequency between segments. Carrier phase of the signal is estimated based upon the overhead field. Estimates carrier phase of random data field are determined based upon the estimated phase values from the overhead fields, and upon both the past and future data signals. Further, the frequency of the signal is estimated based upon the overhead fields and/or the random data field. The above arrangement is particularly suited to a digital satellite broadcast and interactive system.

Method and apparatus for providing carrier synchronization in digital broadcast and interactive systems

A method and apparatus for providing an asymmetrical backwards compatible communications signal that is capable of being decoded by QPSK and OQPSK receivers as well as PSK and QAM receivers is provided. The invention comprises a timing error accumulator coupled to a first bit stream. The first bit stream includes content that is common to the QPSK/OQPSK receiver and to the PSK/QAM receiver. A phase error accumulator is coupled to a second bit stream and adjusts the phase of symbols in the second bit stream. A phase and timing error compensator is coupled to the phase error accumulator and the timing error accumulator and adjusts the first and second bit streams received from the phase error accumulator and the timing error accumulator in order to reduce timing and phase errors. A higher order modulator coupled to the phase- and timing error compensator is also provided. The higher order modulator processes the first and second bit streams to provide the asymmetrical backwards compatible signal.

Method and apparatus for providing higher order modulation that is backwards compatible with quaternary phase shift keying(QPSK) or offset quaternary phase shift keying (OQPSK)

A method and apparatus for providing an asymmetrical backwards compatible communications signal that is capable of being decoded by QPSK and OQPSK receivers as well as PSK and QAM receivers is provided. The invention comprises a timing error accumulator coupled to a first bit stream. The first bit stream includes content that is common to the QPSK/OQPSK receiver and to the PSK/QAM receiver. A phase error accumulator is coupled to a second bit stream and adjusts the phase of symbols in the second bit stream. A phase and timing error compensator is coupled to the phase error accumulator and the timing error accumulator and adjusts the first and second bit streams received from the phase error accumulator and the timing error accumulator in order to reduce timing and phase errors. A higher order modulator coupled to the phase and timing error compensator is also provided. The higher order modulator processes the first and second bit streams to provide the asymmetrical backwards compatible signal.

Method and apparatus for providing higher order modulation that is backwards compatible with quaternary phase shift keying (QPSK) or offset quaternary phase shift keying (OQPSK)

A video encoding/decoding system based on 3D wavelet decomposition and the human perceptual model is implemented. JND is applied in quantizer design to improve the subjective quality of compressed video. The 3D wavelet decomposition helps to remove spatial and temporal redundancy and provides scalability of video quality. In order to conceal the errors that may, occur under bad wireless channel conditions, a slicing method and a joint source channel coding scenario, that combines RCPC with CRC and utilizes the distortion information to allocate convolutional coding rates are proposed. A new subjective quality index based on JND is presented and used to evaluate the overall system performance at different signal to noise rations (SNR) and at different compression ratios. Due to the wide use of arithmetic coding (AC) in data compression, it is considered as a readily available unit in the video codec system for broadcasting. A new scheme for conditional access (CA) sub-system is designed based on the compression graphic property of arithmetic coding. Its performance is analyzed along with its application in a multi-resolution video compression system. This scheme simplifies the conditional access sub-system and provides satisfactory system reliability.

3D wavelet based video codec with human perceptual model

An approach for identifying a particular carrier among a plurality of carriers in a satellite communication system is disclosed. A transmitter multiplies an encoded signal by a prescribed periodic sequence to form a watermarked signal and transmits the watermarked signal associated with a particular carrier over a communication channel. A receiver tunes to one of the carriers and extracts a data sequence from the one carrier. The receiver multiplies the data sequence with the prescribed periodic sequence to form another watermarked signal and determines whether the watermarked signals match.

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Rockville, MD, United States of America

Yimin Jiang