Determination of throughputs, efficiencies and optimal block lengths for an error-correction scheme for the Canadian Broadcast Telidon System

Studies have shown that a reduction in bit error rates through the use of error-correcting codes would result in an improved range of reception, with reduced waiting times, for digital data which are broadcast as ancillary signals on television channels. A simple product code has been used to improve the reception of data transmitted on television lines for the Canadian Broadcast Telidon System, along with a Hamming (8,4) code for bytes in the address portion of each line. Equations for error probabilities show the relationships among variables and, in particular, the design tradeoffs between mean number of pages to decoding failure and efficiency. The use of the product code yields improvements of between 10 for p=10^-3 and 1000 for p=10^-5, for a block size of 25 bytes, demonstrating the value of the coding for increasing the range of reception of data for the Telidon System.