Abstract: A process for encoding digital video signals organized in frames comprises the operations of dividing the frames into blocks starting from macroblocks subjected to motion-compensation and applying to the blocks a discrete cosine transform in such a way as to generate respective sets of coefficients. The sets of coefficients are then assembled by being organized into sets of vectors by a assembling module. Once the variance of the vectors has been detected, the vectors themselves are quantized on a number of available bits by a pyramid vector quantizer, associating to the vectors respective quantization pyramids having given sizes according to the variance detected and to the number of available bits. Finally, the vectors are encoded with respective codewords.

Abstract: A process for encoding digital video signals organized in frames comprises the operations of dividing said frames into blocks starting from macroblocks subjected to motion-compensation and applying to said blocks a discrete cosine transform in such a way as to generate respective sets of coefficients. The said sets of coefficients are then assembled by being organized into sets of vectors by means of masking. Once the variance of the vectors has been detected, the vectors themselves are quantized on a number of available bits by means of a pyramid vector quantizer, associating to the vectors respective quantization pyramids having given sizes according to the variance detected and to the number of available bits. Finally, the vectors are encoded with respective codewords.