(COFDM, Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) A method by which digital information is encoded for transmission. Bell Labs developed it here in the United States. This particular system of encoding has been chose by the European community for their terrestrial transmission of digital television. The system can be used for transmission of any kind of data within the limitations of the maximum bit rate of the system. The specification only describes the transmitted signal and thus does not specify receivers. The data container is an MPEG-2 transport stream.