Decimation of baseband DTV signals prior to channel equalization in digital television signal receivers

A digital television (DTV) signal receiver comprising:

• a radio receiver portion for selecting a channel for reception, for converting DTV signal in the selected channel to intermediate frequencies for filtering and amplification, and for synchrodyning an analog final intermediate-frequency output signal resulting from said filtering and amplification to baseband thereby to generate a baseband signal;
• an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) included in said radio receiver portion for sampling one of said signals therein and digitizing it, so that said baseband signal is supplied from said radio receiver portion as a first stream of digital samples descriptive of said baseband signal;
• a sample clock generator for supplying a sample clock signal to time the sampling by said ADC so that said first stream of digital samples has a sample rate substantially equal to a prescribed multiple MN times the symbol rate of said DTV signal, MN being the product of a positive number M greater than one and of a positive integer N at least two;
• an N:1 decimator connected for receiving said first stream of digital samples and generating in response thereto a second stream of digital samples at a sample rate one N.sup.th that of said first stream of digital samples;
• a channel equalizer for performing channel equalization on said second stream of digital samples to generate a channel equalizer response;
• and
• symbol decoding circuitry for decoding symbols in said channel equalizer response, as corrected for symbol phase error, to recover groups of bits corresponding to decoded symbols.