Error Correcting Code. In digital audio systems, the sampled amplitudes of the signal waveform are expressed by digital encoding. If, in the transmission of the digital words, some bits are missing or incorrect due to tape dropouts, etc., the result will be gross distortion of that portion of the signal when it is reconstructed. Error correction is made possible through the use of a parity check bit added to each data word, as well as more complex schemes.
See error concealment, error protection, CRC.