Techniques for ATSC 3.0 broadcast boundary area management using plural tuners
AssigneeSony Group Corporation
InventorsGraham Clift, Luke Fay, Brant Candelore, Adam Goldberg, Fred Ansfield, Loren F. Pineda
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Techniques are described for expanding and/or improving the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 television protocol in robustly delivering the next generation broadcast television services. In a boundary region between first and second broadcast stations in which a receiver can pick up signals from both stations, a primary tuner presents a demanded service while a secondary tuner scans for duplicate transmissions of the service, and if one is found, the version with the better quality metrics may be presented.
Claims20
In broadcast digital television comprising at least one region in which at least one DTV receiver receives broadcast signals from at least first and second digital television broadcast assemblies, a method, comprising:
- using a first tuner of a digital television receiver, receiving a demanded service carried by a first broadcast signal;
- using a second tuner of the digital television receiver, scanning a frequency spectrum for a duplicate of the demanded service carried by a second signal from the first digital television broadcaster assembly or from the second digital television broadcaster assembly;
- and
- identifying respective first and second quality metrics associated with the respective demanded service and duplicate of the demanded service to form a basis for selecting which broadcast signal to tune to for presenting a service, wherein the digital television receiver comprises an advanced television systems committee (ATSC)-3 receiver and wherein the first and second quality metrics comprise signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), or packet error number (PEN), or both SNR and PEN.
A digital television apparatus comprising:
- at least one receiver configured to receive digital television from a digital television transmitter system comprising at least first and second terrestrial broadcast transmitters, the receiver comprising:
- at least one processor programmed with instructions to:
- present a demanded service acquired from a first tuner;
- while presenting the demanded service, use a second tuner to scan a digital television broadcast over-the-air (OTA) frequency range for a duplicate of the demanded service;
- determine respective quality metrics associated with the demanded service and the duplicate of the demanded service;
- and
- select to present the demanded service or the duplicate of the demanded service based on the quality metrics, wherein the receiver comprises an advanced television systems committee (ATSC)-3 receiver and wherein the quality metrics comprise signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), or packet error number (PEN), or both SNR and PEN.
A digital television apparatus comprising:
- at least one receiver comprising at least one processor programmed with instructions to configure the processor to:
- receive from plural digital television broadcasters information from respective frequencies;
- present a service on the receiver received from a first tuner tuned to a first one of the frequencies;
- scan the frequencies for a duplicate of the service using a second tuner;
- and
- responsive to a relationship of quality metric of the duplicate of the service to a quality metric of the service, present the duplicate of the service in lieu of the service from the first tuner, wherein the service comprises an advanced television systems committee (ATSC)-3 service and the quality metrics comprise signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), or packet error number (PEN), or both SNR and PEN.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.