Robust error correction

Hello! I was wondering if there are any plans, or if it would be possible, to add more robust error correction in the FLAC stream. I do get that error correction might decrease the compression efficiency a bit, but after having a 72TB storage array get corrupted and thousands of FLAC files having errors now, I suspect more users, and especially archivinsts, would be totally fine with the tradseoff! Some ideas could be:

Sidecar Correction Files: Create separate error correction files that can be used to repair damaged FLAC files. These sidecar files would contain parity information or error correction codes that can be applied to the damaged file without altering the original FLAC encoding process. This way, older players that don't support the error correction can still play the original FLAC file, while newer players can take advantage of the error correction data.

Checksums and CRC: FLAC already uses checksums and a CRC (cyclic redundancy check) to detect errors. Increasing the size of the checksum or using more sophisticated CRC algorithms could improve error detection.

Parity Bits: Adding parity bits to the encoded data could allow for the detection and correction of certain errors. Parity can be simple (just one bit) or complex (using multiple bits for error correction codes).

Reed-Solomon Error Correction: This method is widely used in storage and transmission systems to correct errors in data. Implementing Reed-Solomon codes within FLAC could allow the codec to repair larger areas of corrupted data.

MD5 Signature for Audio Stream: FLAC uses an MD5 signature for its decoded audio data to ensure integrity. Strengthening this by including file repair information could help recover corrupted sections.

Hybrid Error Correction: A combination of forward error correction (FEC) and backward error correction techniques can be used, where the codec tries to anticipate errors with FEC and also includes ways to request retransmission or repair packets.

Post-Encoding Error Correction Injection: After the FLAC file is encoded, a post-process could inject error correction data into unused metadata blocks. FLAC metadata blocks are designed to be ignored if not recognized, so older players would skip these blocks, while newer players could use the data for error correction.

External Recovery Tools: Develop a standalone software tool that can analyze and attempt to repair damaged FLAC files based on common corruption patterns. This wouldn't require any changes to the codec itself but would be an external resource for users.

Robust Streaming Protocol: For streaming FLAC files, a protocol could be established that allows for sending error correction data separately from the audio stream. The protocol would handle errors during transmission, providing correction data when needed without altering the FLAC file format.

Tagging Error-Prone Sections: Introduce a system where parts of the audio likely to experience errors are tagged in a way that doesn't affect playback but can be used by error correction algorithms to focus their efforts on the most vulnerable parts of the audio stream.

Forward Error Correction (FEC): This method adds redundancy to the data being sent, so that errors can be detected and corrected by the receiver without the need for retransmission. Codecs used in VoIP, like Opus, can use FEC to maintain audio quality over bad network connections.

Secure Frame Recovery: Designing FLAC frames with the ability to be independently recoverable would enable the codec to skip over corrupted frames, thereby playing back as much of the audio as possible, even if some data is missing. (although I doubt this would be ideal as I think it would be better to just skip corrupted FLAC files altogether and replace them)

Thanks so much for your consideration!