Abstract: Using different number of data bits to represent points in corresponding different sections of a high order monotonic curve in a floating point format. More number of data bits are used to represent one section of the curve, while correspondingly fewer data bits are used to represent another section of the curve. In one embodiment, the differences of mantissa values of successive points are stored in a memory to obtain compression, but with different number of bits for different sections of the curve. The absolute values of the exponents for each section are also stored. The high order monotonic curve may represent a de-gamma curve and used in processing video signals which are to be de-gamma corrected.