Flexible diversity combine receiver architecture for digital television

A digital television receiver comprising:

• a demodulator being coupled to an antenna for generating a synchronization clock and a demodulated signal according to a digital television signal received from the antenna;
• a first switch for selectively coupling the synchronization clock being generated by the demodulator or a bypass synchronization clock from another receiver to a first node;
• a signal combiner being coupled to the demodulator and an output signal from the other receiver for combining the demodulated signal and the output signal from the other receiver to the first node to thereby form a combined signal;
• a channel decoder being coupled to the signal combiner for generating transport stream packets according to the combined signal;
• a smooth buffer being coupled to the channel decoder and the first node for generating a smoothed transport stream having packets being uniformly spaced according to the transport stream packets generated by the channel decoder and the selected synchronization signal;
• and
• a second switch being coupled to the signal combiner and the smooth buffer for selectively coupling the combined signal or the smoothed transport stream to an output terminal of the digital television receiver.

A method of generating a smoothed transport stream to an MPEG decoder for a diversity combine digital television receiver, the method comprising:

• generating a plurality of synchronization clocks and demodulated signals according to a plurality of digital television signals received from a plurality of antennas;
• monitoring a signal quality associated with each of the digital television signals;
• combining at least demodulated signals having a signal quality being greater than a predetermined threshold to thereby form a combined signal;
• generating transport stream packets according to the combined signal;
• selecting a synchronization signal corresponding to a digital television signal having a signal quality being greater than a second predetermined threshold as a selected synchronization signal;
• and
• generating a smoothed transport stream having packets being uniformly spaced according to the transport stream packets and the selected synchronization signal.