Multilevel weighted transmission method and multilevel weighted transmission and reception apparatus

摘要

According to this invention, there are provided a multilevel weighted transmission method which allows error correction encoders to be reduced to one without error propagation and an apparatus using this method. The multilevel weighted transmission method is such that a plurality of hierarchic information source data strings are subjected to different multilevel weighted coding and modulation by a trellis-coded modulation scheme and the resulting strings are transmitted, and on the reception side, the received signal is subjected to the multilevel weighted demodulation and decoding according to the transmission side to obtain the original hierarchic information source data strings. When the specific first subsets are allocated to the hierarchic levels of the transmission channel in the multilevel weighted transmission and time-division multiplexed at a predetermined ratio, the order of time-division multiplexing the hierarchic levels of the transmission channel is ascending order of the quality of transmission error characteristic.