An example method for forming a data-bearing medium in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure includes setting variables associated with the data-bearing medium, the variables comprising a bit length of a payload, a row-to-row offset and an interleave period, identifying a standard form of the payload, the standard form being a circularly shifted version of the payload, generating a phase code based on the variables, and arranging rows of the data-bearing medium with the standard form of the payload and the phase code based on the interleave period.