Patent ID: 7612694

Claim:
A computer implemented method for encoding a set of integers, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of parameters to be encoded in a data stream, the plurality of parameters including integer data values in a plurality of data ranges, including a first data range and a second data range greater than the first data range; for each data range, determining a number of bits required to represent a parameter having a maximum value among parameters in each data range, including a first number of bits and a second number of bits corresponding to the first and second data ranges; and encoding into the data stream each parameter in the first data range using the first number of bits and each parameter in the second data range using the second number of bits, the data stream further including a value representing the first number of bits, wherein the data stream is to be decoded by a decoder using the value representing the first number of bits to recover the first number of bits and the second number of bits via a scaling factor between the first and second numbers of bits, which are used to recover each parameter from the data stream.