Transport (recording)


A transport is a device that handles a particular physical storage medium itself, and extracts or records the information to and from the medium, to an outboard set of processing electronics that the transport is connected to.
A transport houses no electronics itself for encoding and decoding the information recorded to and from a certain format of media. It only extracts and records information to the media, as well as handling mechanical operations for accessing the media itself, such as playing or rewinding a tape, or accessing the tracks on a disc.
An example of a transport for a storage medium would be an audiophile-grade audio CD transport, which houses no D/A converter, unlike most ordinary audio CD players. Instead, the audio CD transport is connected to an external D/A converter via a coaxial or optical digital audio connection to convert the digital audio information to analog for interfacing to most audio equipment.
Here are some other examples of transports for recorded media: