Patent ID: 7822283

Claim:
An arithmetic encoder for converting an event sequence comprised of a plurality of events to an information sequence comprised of at least one information piece, the arithmetic encoder comprising: at least one input port for receiving events of the event sequence; at least one output port; a sequencer coupled with the at least one input port and the at least one output port and including a context generator for generating context information for at least one of the received events; a probability estimator coupled with the sequencer, for receiving an event of the event sequence and corresponding context information from the sequencer, and generating a probability estimate that the event has a particular value; and a core engine coupled with the sequencer and the probability estimator, for receiving the event of the event sequence from the sequencer, and the probability estimate from the probability estimator, and performing an arithmetic encoding to generate zero or more information pieces of the information sequence responsive to the received event and the probability estimate while bounding the ratio of events to information pieces to no higher than a predetermined, fixed ratio, and providing the zero or more information pieces of the information sequence to the sequencer, and wherein the generated information pieces are provided as the information sequence at the at least one output port.