Transport stream (TS, TP, MPEG-TS, or M2T) is a communications protocol for audio, video, and data. It is a type of digital container format that encapsulates packetized elementary streams and other data. TS is specified in MPEG-2 Part 1, Systems (ISO/IEC standard 13818-1)

Transport stream offers features for error correction for transportation over unreliable media, and is used in broadcast applications such as DVB and ATSC. It is contrasted with program stream, designed for more reliable media such as DVDs.

A packet is the basic unit of data in a transport stream. It consists of

1. a sync byte, whose value is 0x47,

2.followed by three one-bit flags and a 13-bit Packet Identifier (PID).

3.This is followed by a 4-bit continuity counter.

4.Additional optional transport fields, as signaled in the optional adaptation field, may follow.

5.The rest of the packet consists of payload.