Patent ID: 7352903

Claim:
A method of performing an MQ encoding operation on at least one coefficient in a block of coefficients representing at least a portion of an image, said at least one coefficient being a quantized coefficient value including at least one coefficient bit value and a sign bit, the method comprising: storing a neighborhood descriptor value in a memory for said at least one coefficient value, said neighborhood descriptor value being stored in a set of neighborhood descriptor values, each coefficient value in said block having a separate corresponding neighborhood descriptor value in said set of neighborhood descriptor values; performing a look up operation using the neighborhood descriptor value corresponding to said at least one coefficient as an index into a neighborhood descriptor value information table to determine from said neighborhood descriptor information table, an MQ coder context state associated with the neighborhood descriptor value corresponding to said at least one coefficient, said MQ coder context state being a context state used as a control input when coding at least one of: said at least one coefficient bit value of said at least one coefficient and said sign bit of said at least one coefficient; and using said determined context state to perform an MQ coding operation on at least one of said at least one coefficient bit value and said sign bit of said at least one coefficient.