Transmission of encoded data over reliable digital communication link using enhanced error recovery mechanism

In order to transport digital data across a reliable digital communication link from a transmit site to a destination site, the data is processed in parallel paths to derive error detection information, such as a cyclic redundancy code, and to encode the data. The outputs of the parallel paths are combined into a composite digital data sequence, which is then transmitted over the reliable digital communication link to the destination site. At the destination site, the encoded digital data component of the composite data sequence is decoded and then subjected to the same error detection operation carried out at the transmit site to derive error detection information associated with the decoded digital data. This recalculated error detection information is compared with the error detection information component contained in the composite digital data sequence. If there is a mismatch, the reliable digital communication link and the encoder at the transmit site and the decoder at the destination site are reset.