Patent ID: 8887020
Filing Date: 2014-11-11
Classification: H03M

Abstract:
1. A method of receiving data transmitted from a source over a communications channel, wherein the data is transmitted as a plurality of output symbols and is generated from at least one symbol in a combined set of input symbols of an input file and redundant symbols, wherein the number of possible valid output symbols for a given set of symbols in the combined set is independent of the number of input symbols in the input file, and wherein the redundant symbols are generated from the input symbols, the method comprising: receiving output symbols from the communications channel, wherein the communications channel might have introduced errors and/or erasures; and regenerating at least a subset of the symbols in the combined set from the received output symbols, the subset of the symbols in the combined set including a plurality of regenerated input symbols and a plurality of regenerated redundant symbols, the regenerating using input symbol probability distributions determined from estimates of output symbol probability distributions, wherein an input symbol probability distribution represents probabilities of particular input symbols having been encoded to form the received output symbols, and wherein the estimates of output symbol probability distributions are determined from probabilities, given a received output symbol, that a particular output symbol was transmitted.