Carrier recovery system for a vestigial sideband signal

In a system for receiving a high definition television (HDTV) signal transmitted as a modulated vestigial sideband (VSB) signal formatted as a one-dimensional data constellation of symbols representing digital image data and subject to exhibiting a carrier offset, a carrier recovery network (50) for frequency shifting said received VSB signal toward baseband, said carrier recovery network being capable of achieving carrier recovery without reliance on a pilot component if present in said received signal, said carrier recovery network comprising:

• an input network (14,16) for processing said VSB signal;
• a filter network (20,22) responsive to an output signal from said input network and having a band edge response with respect to at least one of upper and lower band edges of a frequency spectrum of said VSB signal for producing a double sideband amplitude modulated (AM) signal at an output of said filter network;
• a phase detector network (54) for processing said double sideband AM output signal to produce a control signal (.DELTA.) representing a carrier offset when present;
• and
• an output processor (71,74,75) responsive to said control signal for producing a demodulated output signal at or near baseband.