Patent ID: 6956899

Claim:
A method for encoding digital video picture data, comprising the steps of: partitioning the video picture data into a group of blocks; quantizing the video picture data; selecting at least some of the blocks, one block at a time; encoding each of the selected blocks in a variable length encoder to form encoded coefficients having varying numbers of bits; for each of the selected blocks, and in a given sequence of the selected blocks, i) transmitting quantized data for the block to the encoder, ii) outputting from the variable length encoder the varying bit coefficients encoded from the block, iii) accumulating a sum of the number of bits in the varying bit coefficients output from the encoder, iv)comparing said sum to a predefined block limit value, v) terminating the outputting of the varying bit coefficients encoded from the block to prevent the accumulated sum from exceeding the predefined block limit value, and vi) if all of the coefficients encoded from the block are outputted, and the accumulated sum is less than the predefined block limit value, then increasing the block limit value to allow an increased number of bits to be outputted when the encoded coefficients from the next block in the given sequence are outputted.