A method to transport forward error correction (FEC) codes in a symbol encoded transmission stream includes encoding a data stream from a data source into data symbols using computing circuits, generating first FEC codes from the data symbols using the computing circuits, encoding the first FEC codes into first FEC symbols using the computing circuits, merging the data symbols and the first FEC symbols into the transmission stream using the computing circuits, and transmitting the merged transmission stream to a sink device using the computing circuits. The encoding of the data stream into the data symbols and the encoding of the first FEC codes into the first FEC symbols may include the same encoding technique.