Network system for handling digital data over a tv channel

Abstract

A network system or terminal device utilizes a unique modulation scheme that enables the transmission of digital data over a wireless, cable or direct broadcast satellite TV channel without disturbing quality of television signals. A digital data stream of the network, for example, is transparently transmitted in the television channel in a superfluous sideband segment of the frequency spectrum using a technique, herein called vestigial quadrature modulation (VQM), that entails substituting the vestigial sideband of a conventional television signal with a sideband of a data-encoded signal, preferably being QAM-modulated. A sufficient portion of the television sideband spectrum displaced by the substituted data signal, e.g., to at least the 7.sup.th harmonic, is preserved for deriving sync information that is used both for clocking the digital data from the modulated data signal and for driving vertical and horizontal sync circuits of the television. A receiver in a network terminal device utilizes an interface that includes a channel splitter and SAW filters in each of respective data and video channels for separately processing the video and digital data signals. The sync signal clocks data from the data channel and an integer multiple thereof drives the horizontal sync circuits of a television set.