A method for transferring digital data between a coder/decoder circuit and a signal processor, said method comprising: obtaining, at a first circuit, a block of data values having certain statistical characteristics, the first circuit being one of the coder/decoder circuit and the signal processor; generating, at the first circuit, a data stream by encoding the block of data values based on the statistical characteristics thereof; transferring the data stream to a second circuit via a data bus connecting the first circuit and the second circuit, the second circuit being the other of the coder/decoder circuit and the signal processor; and reconstructing, at the second circuit, the block of data values by decoding the data stream received from the first circuit; wherein said generating includes: scanning the block of data values in a certain order to produce a first data series, the data values including significant values and non-significant values, a number of significant values being statistically smaller than a number of the non-significant values; generating a significance map indicating locations of the significant values in the first data series, wherein the significance map indicates the location of significant values by bit value "1", and non-significant values by bit value "0"; determining a number of bits representing each of the significant values in the first data series; generating, if the number of bits determined for a particular significant value exceeds a predetermined number, an escape codeword indicating the number of bits representing that particular significant value; and generating a second data series including the significance map and the significant values, the escape codeword, if any, being inserted in front of the particular significant value in the second data series, the second data series being the data stream to be transferred, wherein the data values are quantized coefficient values of video data, the significant values are non-zero coefficient values, and the nonsignificant values are equal to zero. obtaining, at a first circuit, a block of data values having certain statistical characteristics, the first circuit being one of the coder/decoder circuit and the signal processor; generating, at the first circuit, a data stream by encoding the block of data values based on the statistical characteristics thereof; transferring the data stream to a second circuit via a data bus connecting the first circuit and the second circuit, the second circuit being the other of the coder/decoder circuit and the signal processor; and reconstructing, at the second circuit, the block of data values by decoding the data stream received from the first circuit; wherein said generating includes: scanning the block of data values in a certain order to produce a first data series, the data values including significant values and non-significant values, a number of significant values being statistically smaller than a number of the non-significant values; generating a significance map indicating locations of the significant values in the first data series, wherein the significance map indicates the location of significant values by bit value "1", and non-significant values by bit value "0"; determining a number of bits representing each of the significant values in the first data series; generating, if the number of bits determined for a particular significant value exceeds a predetermined number, an escape codeword indicating the number of bits representing that particular significant value; and generating a second data series including the significance map and the significant values, the escape codeword, if any, being inserted in front of the particular significant value in the second data series, the second data series being the data stream to be transferred, wherein the data values are quantized coefficient values of video data, the significant values are non-zero coefficient values, and the nonsignificant values are equal to zero. scanning the block of data values in a certain order to produce a first data series, the data values including significant values and non-significant values, a number of significant values being statistically smaller than a number of the non-significant values; generating a significance map indicating locations of the significant values in the first data series, wherein the significance map indicates the location of significant values by bit value "1", and non-significant values by bit value "0"; determining a number of bits representing each of the significant values in the first data series; generating, if the number of bits determined for a particular significant value exceeds a predetermined number, an escape codeword indicating the number of bits representing that particular significant value; and generating a second data series including the significance map and the significant values, the escape codeword, if any, being inserted in front of the particular significant value in the second data series, the second data series being the data stream to be transferred, wherein the data values are quantized coefficient values of video data, the significant values are non-zero coefficient values, and the nonsignificant values are equal to zero.