Interleaving

A method of reducing errors in digital data, interleaving distributes and intermingles the consecutive bits or words of data, spreading them over a wider area on the storage media, and scattering potential errors. This helps protect against consecutive errors when the data is read back. A variety of different schemes for interleaving are used for CD, DAT and other medias, but as an example, on DAT one method uses one record head to write the right channel’s even samples and the left’s odd samples, while the other head writes the left channel’s even samples, and the right’s odd samples. In the case of a burst error (such as those caused by a dirty head), only half of either channel’s samples will be affected, allowing interpolation to conceal the lost data. (See also WFTD “Linear Interpolation“)