Patent ID: 8780979

Claim:
A quantized coefficient coding apparatus, comprising: a determination module, for determining whether a set of quantized coefficients is defined in a predetermined variable length coding (VLC) table to generate a determination result and associating the predetermined variable length coding table to the quantized coefficients for encoding when the determination result is positive; a coding mode arbitration module, coupled to the determination module, for determining a best coding mode, corresponding to the set of the quantized coefficients, from a plurality of predetermined coding modes according to a predetermined rule when the determination result is negative; and a coding module, coupled to the coding mode arbitration module, for encoding the set of quantized coefficients according to the best coding mode or the predetermined variable length coding table, wherein the coding arbitration module performs a two-layer process whereby a first selector performs matching between a given first quantized coefficient and associated best coding mode information stored in a best solution VLC table, and a subsequent second selector performs matching between a given second quantized coefficient and associated best coding mode information stored in the VLC best solution table such that one best coding mode is determined by the shortest length.