Abstract: A video signal decoding apparatus according to the present invention includes a decoding unit for applying a variable length and run-length decoding to a compressed video signal to reconstruct blocks of quantized coefficients. An inverse quantizer is provided for inverse quantizing blocks of reconstructed quantized coefficients. An inverse DCT transforms the inverse quantized blocks of reconstructed quantized coefficients to produce a decoded block. An edge block detector determines whether decoded blocks are classified as an edge block. An adaptive edge enhancement filter removes the distortion in the decoded blocks when the edge block detector classifies decoded blocks as edge blocks. Thus, the video signal is decoded from the encoded video signal.