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Receivers for digital signals buried within the trace and retrace intervals of NTSC television signals

  • US 5,510,845 A
  • Filed: 12/23/1994
  • Issued: 04/23/1996
  • Est. Priority Date: 12/23/1994
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A receiver for receiving a data signal transmitted simultaneously with a television signal through the same television transmission channel;

  • said television signal comprising a video carrier the amplitude of which is modulated in accordance with a video signal descriptive of the scanning of a succession of image frames as scanned one scan line after another at a prescribed video line rate and in accordance with line- and frame-synchronizing pulses for said scanning, said image frames occurring at a prescribed video frame rate;

    said data signal modulating at least a first phasing of a suppressed data carrier having a frequency differing from that of said video carrier by a prescribed offset frequency, and having no image on the other side of said video carrier, to generate amplitude-modulation sidebands of said suppressed data carrier;

    said data signal having a symbol rate that is a multiple of said prescribed video line rate, and having data frames occurring at a data frame rate that is the same as said video frame rate, and being at all times relatively small in amplitude compared to the line- and frame-synchronizing pulses of said television signal;

    said receiver comprising;

    circuitry for generating a digitized response to variations of amplitude within a portion of said same television transmission channel occupied by said suppressed data carrier and at least a portion of the frequency spectrum of said television signal, said generating performed without relying on video detection of said television signal, so said digitized response includes digitized data signal and digitized unwanted cross-products of said data carrier and said at least a portion of the frequency spectrum of said television signal;

    circuitry for detecting the line- and frame-synchronizing pulses that modulate the amplitude of said video carrier;

    comb filter circuitry for receiving said digitized response to variations of amplitude within said portion of said same television transmission channel and generating a comb filter response thereto, which comb filter response is relatively sensitive to said digitized data signal and relatively insensitive to said digitized unwanted cross-products; and

    symbol decision circuitry receiving said comb filter response and supplying a symbol stream in response thereto;

    wherein said comb filter circuitry includesdigital random access memory for temporarily storing said digitized response to variations of amplitude within said portion of said same television transmission channel and supplied with write and read addresses;

    a data row counter for counting the detected line-synchronizing pulses to generate a data row count used in the write and read addresses for said random access memory;

    a locked oscillator for generating oscillations at a frequency that is a multiple of the frequency of said detected line-synchronizing pulses;

    a symbol-per-row counter for counting for counting selected average-axis crossings of the oscillations of said locked oscillator to generate a symbol-per-row count used in the write and read addresses for said random access memory; and

    circuitry periodically resetting said data row counter to a prescribed count in response to alternate ones of the detected field-synchronizing pulses.

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