Methods and apparatus employing FEC codes with permanent inactivation of symbols for encoding and decoding processes

Encoding of a plurality of encoded symbols is provided wherein an encoded symbol is generated from a combination of a first symbol generated from a first set of intermediate symbols and a second symbol generated from a second set of intermediate symbols, each set having at least one different coding parameter, wherein the intermediate symbols are generated based on the set of source symbols. A method of decoding data is also provided, wherein a set of intermediate symbols is decoded from a set of received encoded symbols, the intermediate symbols organized into a first and second sets of symbols for decoding, wherein intermediate symbols in the second set are permanently inactivated for the purpose of scheduling the decoding process to recover the intermediate symbols from the encoded symbols, wherein at least some of the source symbols are recovered from the decoded set of intermediate symbols.