The Design of a High-Performance Error-Correcting Coding Scheme for the Canadian Broadcast Telidon System Based on Reed-Solomon Codes

Error correction can greatly improve the performance and extend the range of broadcast teletext systems. In this paper, the requirements for an error-correcting scheme for broadcast teletext in North America (NABTS) are set down. An error-correction scheme which meets all these requirements is then described. The simplest case employs the one parity bit in each 8 bit byte and no suffix of parity check bits at the end of each data block. The next level also uses a single byte of parity check bits at the end of each data block. Adding a second byte of parity checks at the end of each data block results in a Reed-Solomon code, called the code, for each data block. Adding one data block of parity checks after data blocks results in a set of data packets being encoded into a bundle, in which vertical codes provide powerful interleaving. In a final alternative, two data blocks hold the check bytes for the vertical codewords, and the most powerful coding scheme, the double bundle code, results. The detailed mathematical definitions of the various codes are referred to or described, formulas for performance calculations are referred to, and performance curves are presented for the AWGN channel as well as for measured field data. These performance curves are discussed and compared to the performance of a difference set cyclic code, originally designed for the Japanese teletext system, which corrects any 8 bits in error in a packet.