Patent ID: 7366239

Claim:
A method for compressing a group of basic media data units, the method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving the group of basic media data units; (b) for each basic media data unit of the group performing the steps of: (b1) partially decoding at least a portion of the basic media data; (b2) determining whether to reduce the size of the basic media data unit of the received block in view of a predefined relationship between a predefined compression ratio (PCRA) and a residual ratio (RR); wherein the residual ratio (RR) reflects a relationship between (i) an aggregate size (RSG) of basic data visual units of the group that did not undergo step (b), (ii) the target size (TG) of the group of basic data visual units, and (iii) the aggregate size (RTG) of basic data visual units of that did undergo step (b); (b3) reducing, in view of the determination, the size of a basic media data unit such that an optimal reduction to quality degradation of the basic media data block is achieved; and (b4) encoding the basic media data unit.