Methods for transmitting digital multimedia and data over the same wires
A method of transmitting a data stream over a communication channel, the method comprising: providing symbol sets having different numbers of symbols; modulating data in the data stream that warrant different degrees of protection against noise onto symbols from symbol sets having different numbers of symbols, wherein which symbol set given data in the stream is modulated onto is independent of symbol sets onto which other data in the data stream is modulated onto; and transmitting the symbols.
1. A method comprising: transmitting, by a first transceiver, a packet-based downstream transmission of lossless high definition digital video over a first physical medium comprising at least one conductive wire; transmitting, by the first transceiver, a packet-based downstream transmission of a bidirectional data channel over a second physical medium comprising at least one conductive wire, wherein the first physical medium and the second physical medium have at least one common wire; transmitting, by a second transceiver, an upstream transmission of the bidirectional data channel over the common wire; and accepting, by the second transceiver, predefined packets that are detected as erroneous; wherein frequency bands of the upstream and downstream transmissions at least partially overlap.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising modulating the downstream transmission of the lossless high definition digital video with a first modulation providing a first level of protection against noise; and modulating the downstream transmission of the bidirectional data channel with a second modulation providing a second level of protection against noise.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first and the second modulations are pulse amplitude modulations.
4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first and the second modulations use at least partially overlapping subsets of the same symbol set.
5. The method of claim 2 , further comprising the step of receiving the packets of the downstream transmissions of the lossless high definition digital video and the bidirectional data channel, and mapping the received packets to the appropriate modulators.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the different modulations use subsets of the same symbol set.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the predefined packets are packets comprising video pixel data.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of transmitting packets containing predefined data types without an error indication overhead.
9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of multiplexing the various downstream transmissions before the step of transmitting the downstream transmissions.
10. A method comprising: multiplexing a first data stream and lossless high definition pixel data; transmitting, by a transceiver, the multiplexed result over a set of wires utilizing a first frequency band; and receiving, by the transceiver, a second data stream, wherein the second data stream is received over at least a subset of the wires utilized for the multiplexed transmission, and the received data stream utilizes a second frequency band that at least partially overlaps with the first frequency band; wherein the transceiver does not discard a portion of the pixel data, even upon receiving an indication that the portion of the pixel data contains an erroneous data bit; and the transceiver transmits video clock related data and video synchronization data.
11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising modulating some of the symbols of the multiplexed result with a first modulation providing a first level of protection against noise, and some of the symbols of the multiplexed result with a second modulation providing a second level of protection against noise.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the first and the second modulations are pulse amplitude modulations.
13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the modulation is determined according to the symbol's data type.
14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the first and the second modulations use at least partially overlapping subsets of the same symbol set.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the symbol set is PAM-16.
16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising the step of receiving the multiplexed result and mapping the symbols comprised in the multiplexed result to the appropriate demodulators.
17. The method of claim 10 , wherein the lossless high definition pixel data is uncompressed high definition pixel data.
18. The method of claim 10 , further comprising transmitting the multiplexed result using rate that is independent of the pixel data rate.
19. The method of claim 10 , further comprising transmitting the multiplexed result using rate that depends on the pixel data rate.
20. The method of claim 10 , further comprising transmitting the clock of the lossless high definition pixel data.
21. The method of claim 10 , wherein the transmissions are half duplex.
22. The method of claim 21 , further comprising transmitting the second data stream during blanking periods of the lossless high definition digital video.
23. The method of claim 10 , wherein the transmissions are full duplex.
24. The method of claim 10 , wherein the video clock related data is the video clock, which is transmitted at least occasionally.
25. A method comprising: multiplexing a first data stream and a digital video clock; transmitting the multiplexed result over a set of wires utilizing a first frequency band; and receiving a second data stream, wherein the second data stream is received over at least a subset of the wires utilized for the multiplexed transmission, and the received data stream utilizes a second frequency band that at least partially overlaps with the first frequency band; the method further comprising transmitting video pixel data and video synchronization data.
26. The method of claim 25 , further comprising modulating the multiplexed first data stream with a first modulation providing a first level of protection against noise, and modulating the multiplexed digital video clock with a second modulation providing a second level of protection against noise.
27. The method of claim 26 , wherein the first and the second modulations are pulse amplitude modulations.
28. The method of claim 26 , wherein the first and the second modulations use at least partially overlapping subsets of the same symbol set.
29. The method of claim 28 , wherein the symbol set is PAM-16.
30. The method of claim 25 , wherein the digital video clock is a video clock of uncompressed high definition pixel data.
31. The method of claim 25 , further comprising transmitting the multiplexed result using rate that is independent of the digital video clock.
32. The method of claim 25 , further comprising transmitting the multiplexed result using rate that depends on the digital video clock.
33. The method of claim 32 , wherein the digital video clock is transmitted occasionally.
34. The method of claim 25 , wherein the transmissions are half duplex.
35. The method of claim 34 , further comprising transmitting the second data stream during blanking periods of the video.
36. The method of claim 25 , wherein the transmissions are full duplex.