Retransmission apparatus using IP multicasting method for DMB service

A method for retransmission of a Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) service using an (Internet Protocol) IP multicasting, the method comprising the steps of:

• receiving a DMB radio frequency (RF) signal of DMB broadcast data on a corresponding channel at each of a plurality (n) of radio frequency (RF) receivers;
• decoding the DMB RF signal received from a corresponding channel and outputting a transport stream (TS);
• demultiplexing the TS into a video signal, an audio signal, and a data signal;
• re-slicing the video signal of the demultiplexed TS received from a corresponding channel by a re-slicer unit and parsing only the video signal from among the video signal, audio signal and a data signal from among the TS, and for encoding only the parsed video signal on a basis of a predetermined slice of a known size;
• IP packetizing the sliced TS from the corresponding channel;
• multiplexing the IP packets by a network switch;
• transferring the multiplexed IP packets to a multicasting processing unit;
• and
• creating a single piece of multicasting data by assigning multicasting addresses to the received IP packets, and outputting the created multicasting data, wherein the DMB broadcast data transmitted by the DMB service and received by the plurality of RF receivers is retransmitted as multicasted channel data of DMB-IP multimedia data;
• and
• wherein multicasting data includes a source address set to identify channel information selected by each of the plurality (n) of RF receivers.

An Internet Protocol (IP) multicasting retransmitter for Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) service using an (Internet Protocol) IP, said IP multicasting retransmitter comprising:

• a multicast processing unit in communication with a network switch, said multicast processing unit receiving multiplexed IP packets by the network switch, creating a single piece of multicasting data by assigning multicasting addresses to the received IP packets, and outputting the created multicasting data back to the network switch, and
• a plurality of data processing units in communication with the network switch, each data processing unit comprising:
• an radio frequency (RF) receiver for receiving a DMB RF signal of DMB broadcast data from an associated channel;
• a DMB decoder, in communication with the RF receiving, for outputting a transport stream by decoding a received DMB RF signal;
• a slicer module, in communication with the decoder, for slice processing an input from the decoder into a known size;
• an interfacer, in communication with the slicer, for IP packetizing the signal of known size;
• wherein said slicer module includes a transport stream (TS) demultiplexer for demultiplexing the transport stream into a video signal, an audio signal, and a data signal and a re-slicer for parsing only the video signal from among the demultiplexed signals and encoding the parsed video signal on a basis of a predetermined slice of a known size, wherein the DMB broadcast data transmitted by the DMB service and received by the RF receivers retransmitted as multicasted channel data of DMB-IP multimedia data;
• and
• wherein multicasting data include a source address set to identify channel information selected by each of the RF receiver.