Talk:Turbo code

The Shannon Limit

"For satellite use, this is not of great concern, since the transmission distance itself introduces latency due to the limited speed of light." - Can the writer of this sentence justify this? Considering how fast the speed of light is, I don't think this can really contribute to latency. - Yongqli

User:HughSW -- hats off to your addition How Turbo codes work -- really nice work! technopilgrim

Compared with Reed-Solomon

I am interested to know if turbo code is more efficient than Reed-Solomon error correction for those areas that Reed-Solomon is particularly used for. For example, given the same number of additional bits, is turbo code better able to handle errored signals? Is turbo code better able to handle missing signals? Is turbo code well suited to 'bursty' errors? Also, on modern desktop CPUs, which is most time-efficient for encoding and decoding? --Yamla 18:08, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

In terms of encoding efficiency, Turbo Codes are the best known (as mentioned in the first paragraph). Bursty errors are usually handled by interleaving/rearranging the bits (as in read solomon's usage on CD's). Sorry I can't tell you which is most time-efficient. 194.106.59.2 20:37, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How turbo codes work

I think the emphasis of the How turbo codes work section is wrong: the focus is on soft-bits while this is not what Turbo codes made different, it is the fact that two codes in parallel (interleaved) are used. The soft decoding was already known before ([1]: "It is well known that soft decoding is better than hard decoding") Emvee 20:43, 16 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is true. (LDPC improves upon turbo coding for the same reason.) --Piet Delport 20:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nitty gritty

Wow this article has the lame term "nitty-gritty" twice. (Once with a hyphen and once without, heh.)

Typical number of iterations?

The Wikipedia article says "typically in 15 to 18 cycles", but both articles referenced at the end say "typically 4 to 10". Which is more correct?

My gut feel is that the number depends on some external factor, like the number of errors, in which case the statement should probably be replaced entirely with an explanation of what factors influence the iteration count, and why. --Piet Delport 20:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]