Mobile reception of digital video broadcasting—terrestrial services

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9281847-B2
Application number	US-71426810-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 26, 2010
Priority date	Feb 27, 2009
Publication date	Mar 8, 2016
Grant date	Mar 8, 2016

Abstract

A method of protecting data with application layer forward error correction in a communication system, wherein the communication system includes first devices with legacy receivers and second devices with FEC-enabled receivers, operation of the legacy receivers is not affected by the application layer forward error correction, and the method includes: determining a duration period; assembling packets of source data into source blocks corresponding to the duration period, each source block comprising a number of packets of source data; encoding the source blocks to generate encoded blocks, each encoded block comprising a number of packets of repair data; and transmitting the packets of repair data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of protecting data, to be transmitted from a transmitter configured for outputting electronic signals, with application layer forward error correction (“FEC”) in a communication system, the communication system including first devices with legacy receivers and second devices with FEC-enabled receivers, wherein operation of the legacy receivers is not affected by the application layer FEC, the method comprising:
determining a duration period;
assembling packets of source data into source blocks corresponding to the duration period, each source block comprising a number of packets of source data;
encoding the source blocks, using an encoder, to generate encoded blocks, each encoded block comprising a number of packets of repair data forming application layer FEC data;
parsing the source blocks into a first set of elementary streams comprising one or more elementary streams having associated elementary stream indicators:
parsing the encoded blocks into a second set of elementary streams comprising one or more elementary streams having associated elementary stream indicators: and
transmitting the packets of repair data, using the transmitter, with elementary stream indicators, including indicators that an FEC-enabled receiver recognizes as an FEC stream and a legacy receiver recognizes as a stream to be ignored, thereby allowing for a transmission directed at both FEC-enabled receivers and legacy receivers to be handled such that operation of the legacy receivers is not affected by the application layer FEC.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the source data comprises Digital Video Broadcasting—Terrestrial data.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising separating or partitioning the packets of source data from a data stream.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the number of packets of repair data of an encoded block is greater than the number of packets of source data of a source block.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining which packets of source data from a data stream to assemble into source blocks, wherein at least some of the packets of source data from the data stream are not assembled into source blocks.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining a protection amount for the source blocks, wherein the source blocks are encoded based on the protection amount.

7. A method of receiving data, with a receiver configured for receiving and processing electronic signals, protected with application layer forward error correction (“FEC”) in a communication system, the communication system including first devices with legacy receivers and second devices with FEC-enabled receivers, wherein operation of the legacy receivers is not affected by the application layer FEC, the method comprising:
receiving packets of repair data using the receiver;
if packets are received and determined to be associated with an elementary stream not handled by the receiver, skipping such packets;
if packets are received and determined to be associated with an elementary stream indicated as containing packets of repair data providing application layer FEC data and the receiver is configured as an FEC-enabled receiver, processing the packets determined to be FEC data;
parsing packets from an elementary stream when packets are determined to be associated with the elementary stream and the elementary stream is indicated as containing source blocks, to form encoded blocks;
if the receiver is configured as an FEC-enabled receiver, assembling the received packets of repair data into additional encoded blocks, each additional encoded block comprising a number of packets of repair data;
decoding the encoded blocks using a decoder to generate source blocks, each source block corresponding to a predetermined duration period and comprising a number of packets of source data;
if the receiver is configured as an FEC-enabled receiver and not all source data is decoded, using the additional encoded blocks to generate additional source data; and
assembling the packets of source data, and the additional source data, if available, to reproduce a transmitted data stream.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the transmitted data stream comprises Digital Video Broadcasting—Terrestrial data.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising separating or partitioning the packets of repair data from a received data stream.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the encoded blocks are decoded based on a predetermined protection amount.

11. An apparatus configured to protect data with application layer forward error correction (“FEC”) in a communication system, the communication system including first devices with legacy receivers and second devices with FEC-enabled receivers, wherein operation of the legacy receivers is not affected by the application layer FEC, the apparatus comprising:
a processor configured to determine a duration period, and assemble packets of source data into source blocks corresponding to the duration period, each source block comprising a number of packets of source data;
an encoder communicatively coupled to the processor and configured to encode the source blocks to generate encoded blocks, each encoded block comprising a number of packets of application layer FEC repair data;
a parser for parsing the source blocks into a first set of elementary streams comprising one or more elementary streams having associated elementary stream indicators and for parsing the encoded blocks into a second set of elementary streams comprising one or more elementary streams having associated elementary stream indicators; and
a transmitter communicatively coupled to the encoder and configured to transmit the packets of repair data, with elementary stream indicators, including indicators that an FEC enabled receiver recognizes as an FEC stream and a legacy receiver recognizes as a stream to be ignored, thereby allowing for a transmission directed at both FEC-enabled receivers and legacy receivers would be handled such that operation of the legacy receivers is not affected by the application layer FEC.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the source data comprises Digital Video Broadcasting—Terrestrial data.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the processor is further configured to separate or partition the packets of source data from a data stream.

14. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the number of packets of repair data of an encoded block is greater than the number of packets of source data of a source block.

15. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the processor is further configured to determine which packets of source data from a data stream to assemble into source blocks, wherein at least some of the packets of source data from the data stream are not assembled into source blocks.

16. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein
the processor is further configured to determine a protection amount for the source blocks; and
the encoder is configured to encode the source blocks based on the protection amount.

17. An apparatus configured to receive data protected with application layer forward error correction (“FEC”) in a communication system, the communication system including devices with legacy receivers, wherein operation of the legacy receivers is not affected by the application layer FEC, the apparatus comprising:
a receiver configured to receive packets of repair data, wherein packets are received with indications of an associated elementary stream, at least one elementary stream being associated with source packets to be processed by legacy

Assignees

• Stockhammer Thomas
• Gómez-Barquero David
• Gozalvez Serrano David
• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Stockhammer Thomas
• Gómez-Barquero David
• Gozalvez Serrano David

Classifications

• H04L1/0043

  Realisations of complexity reduction techniques, e.g. use of look-up tables · CPC title

• H04N21/4382

  Demodulation or channel decoding, e.g. QPSK demodulation (analog front ends or means for connecting modulators, demodulators or transceivers to a transmission line H04L27/0002) · CPC title

• H04L1/0071

  Use of interleaving (interleaving per se H03M13/27) · CPC title

• H04N21/2383

  Channel coding {or modulation} of digital bit-stream, e.g. QPSK modulation (arrangements for detecting or preventing errors in the information received by adapting the channel coding H04L1/0009; analogue front ends or means for connecting modulators, demodulators or transceivers to a transmission line H04L27/0002) · CPC title

• H04L2001/0093

  Point-to-multipoint · CPC title