Patent ID: 8341495

Claim:
A method for detecting short burst errors, the method comprising: receiving a signal, wherein the signal includes a soft input (La) and a soft output (Le), wherein receiving a signal is through at least one of a channel detector or a low-density parity-check (LDPC) code decoder to detect short burst errors; checking the signal for sign disagreement, wherein checking for sign disagreement includes checking a soft input sign(La) and a soft output sign(Le) for disagreement; generating a sign disagreement, wherein a generated disagreement sign is sign(La)≠sign(Le) where the soft output sign(Le) fails to converge with the soft input sign(La); passing the sign disagreement (La)≠(Le) through a filter, wherein the filter is a moving average filter which includes a moving average window configured for generating an averaged sign; setting a burst threshold for the moving average window; generating an erasure flag when the burst threshold is exceeded; and extending erasure edges, wherein the erasure edges are extended left and right of the burst threshold by a maximum number of bits until a zero in the averaged sign is found.