Patent ID: 8631299

Claim:
An error correction encoding method in which a plurality of LDPC codes having code lengths equal to one another and code rates different from one another are encoded, comprising: an encoding step in which, when carrying out encoding of an LDPC code, among said plurality of LDPC codes, which corresponds to a code rate different from a first LDPC code corresponding to a first code rate, the encoding is carried out based on an encoding matrix for encoding an LDPC code which has a code length equal to that of said first LDPC code and a code rate different from that of said first LDPC code, said encoding matrix being generated based on a first encoding matrix or a sub-matrix of said first encoding matrix for carrying out the encoding of said first LDPC code, and the encoding step includes generation of a parity check matrix which has a plurality of LDPC code rates and a single row length and in which a number of rows corresponding to each of the LDPC code rates corresponds to a number of parity bits required for each respective LDPC code rate, and individual row vectors of the parity check matrix are linearly independent from one another.