The ideal FDDF may be defined by reference to analog time-delay filters as described in diagram 1 [3]. From a time sequence we rebuild the original analog signal, then we delay it and finally we re-sample it in order to get .
This definition is no longer consistent if there is some residual energy at the Nyquist frequency. For instance the sequence may be the sampled version of any of the functions. Furthermore a shifted cardinal sine isn't absolutely summable which means that FDDFs aren't BIBO. For these reasons, we shall limit the study of FDDFs only for input sequences with no component at the Nyquist frequency. In this subspace, FDDFs are consistent and BIBO.