Patent ID: 7020672

Claim:
A method of decoding a video signal, the method comprising: receiving an array of Discrete Coefficient Transform (DCT) coefficients, said DCT coefficient array having been obtained by performing the DCT algorithm on a macroblock (MB), said macroblock being an array of pixels in a video frame, wherein said DCT coefficient array corresponds to said MB; determining at least one of the horizontal complexity and the vertical complexity of said MB by determining the value of a predetermined one of the coefficients, wherein said predetermined coefficient represents the highest at least one of horizontal frequency and vertical frequency; and performing inverse DCT (IDCT) coding on a sub-array of coefficients within the DCT coefficient array in order to reconstruct said macroblock, wherein the size and position of said sub-array depends on the determined value of the predetermened one of the coefficients having the highest of at least one of horizontal frequency, and wherein the location of the predetermined one of the coefficients is predetermined.