Methods and apparatus to select tornado error correction parameter

• US 8,301,958 B2
• Filed: 12/10/2008
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DIRECTV, LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jijina, Aspandyar M., Liu, Charles, Hagberg, Hans M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Riad, Amine
• Application Number:
  US12/332,052
• Publication Number:
  US 20090094501A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,420 Days
• Field of Search: 714/752
• US Class Current: 714/752
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/35 Unequal or adaptive error protection, e.g. by providing a different level of protection according to significance of source information or by adapting the coding according to the change of transmission channel characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/3761 using code combining, i.e. using combining of codeword portions which may have been transmitted separately, e.g. Digital Fountain codes, Raptor codes or Luby Transform [LT] codes
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/6508 Flexibility, adaptability, parametrability and configurability of the implementation

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to select Tornado forward error correction parameters for delivery systems are disclosed. A disclosed example system includes a transmitter station comprising a processor to select a Tornado error correction parameter based on an error correction configuration for a file and to indicate to a receiver the selected Tornado error correction parameter, and a Tornado error correction circuit to encode the file based on the selected Tornado error correction parameter.

Claims

1. A system comprising

a transmitter station comprising:

a processor to select an error correction parameter based on an error correction configuration for a file, and

an error correction circuit to encode the file based on the selected error correction parameter.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising assigning a value to the error correction parameter.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the transmitter station transmits at least one of the error correction parameter and the value to a receiver station.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the transmitter station is a satellite broadcast transmitter.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the transmitter station further comprises:

a transport device, coupled to the processor; and

a modulator, coupled to the transport device, for converting the encoded data to a modulated waveform.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a receiver station comprising;

a processing device for receiving the error correction parameter; and

an error correction circuit, coupled to the processing device, for decoding a received file using the error correction parameter.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the receiver station further comprises a memory, coupled to the processing device, for storing at least one error correction graphs.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the received error correction parameter is used to select an error correction graph.

9. A method of error correction for a signal, comprising:

selecting a tornado error correction parameter based on a representative parameter for the signal, the representative parameter comprising a desired error correction characteristic;

encoding the signal using the tornado error correction parameter; and

transmitting the encoded signal.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the desired error correction characteristic is at least one of a business priority, a file size, a broadcast data rate, a file size inflation factor, a number of blocks per file, and an amount of overhead.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising assigning a value to the tornado error correction parameter.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising transmitting at least one of the tornado error correction parameter and the value to a receiver station.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving at least one of the tornado error correction parameter and the value; and

an error correction circuit, coupled to the processing device, for decoding a received file using at least one of the value and the tornado error correction parameter.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein transmission of the encoded signal is performed by a satellite broadcast transmitter.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

converting the encoded signal into a modulated waveform prior to transmitting the encoded signal.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising storing a plurality of tornado error correction graphs;

and retrieving the selected tornado error correction parameter from at least one of the tornado correction graphs.

17. A system for reducing errors in received signals, comprising:

a memory for storing a plurality of error correction factors;

a processing device, coupled to the memory, for processing the received signals to determine an error correction factor used to encode the received signals and for retrieving the determined error correction factor from the plurality of error correction factors stored in the memory; and

an error correction circuit, coupled to the processing device, for decoding the received signals using on the determined error correction factor.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the memory stores the plurality of error correction factors in graphical form.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the processing device determines the error correction factor used to encode the received signals using a value associated with the error correction factor.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the received signals are transmitted via a satellite broadcasting system.