Apparatus for, and method of, receiving satellite television signals in an apartment building and providing television images in the receivers in such building
First Claim
1. In combination for providing for the introduction of satellite television into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television from a cable head end system, means at the apartment building for receiving signals providing the satellite television and having a first particular framing, means at the apartment building for reframing the satellite television signals in the first particular framing to a second particular framing corresponding to that provided for terrestial television, means at the apartment building for distributing the signals in the second particular framing through the cable plant, and means at the apartments in the apartment building for operating upon the signals in the second particular framing, after the passage of such signals through the cable plant, to deframe the television signals prior to conversion to a television image.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Digital packets, defined by a sync byte and then 130 MPEG2 compressed QPSK signal bytes, from a satellite transponder are reformatted prior to transmission to television receivers in apartments in a building wired to distribute video signals. A side byte between such sync and signal bytes in each packet indicates (a) any QPSK packet uncorrectable error and (b) processing information which allows automatic reconfiguration at the settop box. Additional FEC bytes correct to 8 errors within a MPEG2QPSK packet. The system removes the FEC bytes and reframes the MPEG2QPSK packets into a superpacket by converting a first number of the MPEG2QPSK packets to a second number of MPEG2QAM packets. An added sync byte indicates the beginning of each such MPEG2QAM packet. The system adds side data bytes including any uncorrectable errors in each MPEG2QPSK packet and adds a new, less complicated FEC to each MPEG2QAM packet. The system modulates and upconverts the bytes in each MPEG2QAM packet and passes them through a cable plant constructed to receive modulated QAM bytes (or NTSC signals) which are demodulated at the settop box. The additional FEC bytes correct to 8 errors within a MPEG2QAM packet and are then removed. The superpacket is deframed to obtain the MPEG2QPSK packets. After finding a television channel, the side bytes are processed to determine the frequency location of the other channels in the apartment receivers and the existence of uncorrectable errors. The MPEG2QAM bytes are decompressed and encoded to reproduce the television images in the apartment receivers.
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Citations
46 Claims
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1. In combination for providing for the introduction of satellite television into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television from a cable head end system,
means at the apartment building for receiving signals providing the satellite television and having a first particular framing, means at the apartment building for reframing the satellite television signals in the first particular framing to a second particular framing corresponding to that provided for terrestial television, means at the apartment building for distributing the signals in the second particular framing through the cable plant, and means at the apartments in the apartment building for operating upon the signals in the second particular framing, after the passage of such signals through the cable plant, to deframe the television signals prior to conversion to a television image.
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6. In combination for providing for the introduction of satellite television from satellite transponders into television receivers in apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television from a cable head end system,
means at the apartment building for receiving packets of signal bytes from the satellite transponders, each packet being defined by a first frame having a first particular number of signal bytes, means at the apartment building for refraining the packets of signal bytes in the first frames to packets each defined by a second particular number of signal bytes in a second frame different from the first frame and corresponding to that provider from the terrestial transponders means at the apartment building for distributing the signal bytes in the second frames through the cable plant, and means at the apartment in the apartment building for deframing the packets of signal bytes in the second frames after the passage of the signal bytes in the second frames through the cable plant.
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11. In combination for providing for the introduction of satellite television from satellite transponders into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television from a cable head end system,
means at the apartment building for receiving a plurality of first packets each defined by a first sync byte and by a first number of signal bytes individual to satellite television, means at the apartment building for providing second sync bytes at positions in the first packets to define second packets each having a second number of signal bytes for terrestial television, the second number being different from the first number, means at the apartment building for providing continued processing of the second packets of signal bytes in accordance with the positioning of the second sync bytes.
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16. In combination for providing for the introduction of satellite television from satellite transponders into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television from a cable head end system,
means at the apartment building for receiving MPEG2QPSK signals from the satellite transponders, means at the apartment building for reframing the MPEG2QPSK signals into MPEG2QAM signals representing terrestial television from the terrestial transponders, means at the apartment building for providing side signals providing information to aid in processing to be provided in the apartments in the apartment building on the QAM signals, and means at the apartments in the apartment building for processing the QAM signals in accordance with the information provided by the side signals.
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21. In combination for providing for the introduction of satellite television into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television signals,
means at the apartment building for receiving MPEG2QPSK packets of signal bytes, each MPEG2QPSK packet including a first particular number of signal bytes and including a first sync byte at the beginning of each MPEG2QPSK packet, means at the apartment building for reframing the MPEG2QPSK packets of signal bytes into MPEG2QAM packets of signal bytes, each such QAM packet including a second particular number of signal bytes where the second particular number is different from the first particular number, and means at the apartment building for providing a second sync byte at the beginning of each MPEG2QAM packet of signal bytes.
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29. In combination for providing for the introduction of satellite television from satellite transponders into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television from a cable head end system,
means at the apartment building for receiving MPEG2QPSK packets of signal bytes, each packet including a first particular number of signal bytes and including a first sync byte at the beginning of the signal bytes forming each MPEG2QPSK superpacket, a second particular number of the MPEG2QPSK packets defining a superpacket, means at the apartment building for reframing the MPEG2QPSK packets of signal bytes in each superpacket into MPEG2QAM packets of signal bytes in such superpacket, each such MPEG2QAM packet including a third particular number of signal bytes where the third particular number is different form the first particular number, means at the apartment building for providing a second sync byte at the beginning of each MPEG2QAM packet of signal bytes in each superpacket, means responsive at the apartments in the apartment building to the sync byte in the MPEG2QAM packets of signal bytes for processing the signal bytes in such MPEG2QAM packets to recover the television images represented by such signal bytes.
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34. In a method of providing for the introduction of satellite television from satellite transponders into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant to distribute terrestial television from a head end system,
receiving at the apartment building packets of MPEG2QPSK signal bytes where each packet includes a first particular number of MPEG2QPSK signal bytes and includes a first sync byte defining the beginning of such packet and where a second particular number of the packets defines a superpacket and where the MPEG2QPSK signal bytes provide the satellite television, providing a second sync byte at the beginning of each packet of MPEG2QAM signal bytes in each superpacket where the QAM signal bytes provide the terrestial television and where each packet of the MPEG2QAM signal bytes includes a third particular number of signal bytes and where the third particular number is different form the first particular number, and using the second sync bytes in the MPEG2QAM packets in each superpacket to provide a processing of the MPEG2QAM packets of signal bytes in each superpacket.
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39. In a method of providing for the introduction of satellite television from satellite transponders into apartments in an apartment building having a cable plant wired to distribute terrestial television from a head end system, the steps of:
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providing at the apartment building signal bytes in MPEG2QPSK packets each defined by a first particular number of signal bytes, providing a plurality of the MPEG2QPSK packets of signal bytes in a superpacket, reframing the signal bytes in the superpacket into MPEG2QAM packets of signal bytes where each MPEG2QAM packet is defined by a second particular number of signal bytes different form the first particular number of signal bytes, and processing the MPEG2QAM signal bytes in the packets in the superpacket to form television images. - View Dependent Claims (40, 41, 42)
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43. In a method of providing a television image on the face of a monitor in a television receiver, the steps of:
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receiving a plurality of packets each including a plurality of signal bytes representing images to be displayed on the face of the television receiver, providing in each of the received packets a sync byte indicating a first one of the packets in the plurality, providing a side byte at each of the packets in the plurality, each of the side bytes being formed from a plurality of bits, providing, at a particular position in each of the side bytes, a bit cumulatively indicating with corresponding bits in a sequence of the side bytes in successive instances of the packets, an individual selection of a plurality of television channels in the television receiver to receive the signal bytes, and processing the signal bytes in the packets to provide the television image in the individual selection of the channels in the monitor in the television receiver. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45, 46)
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Specification