Abstract: A method of transmission or storage of a television picture involves dividing it into a plurality of blocks, subjecting them individually to a two-dimensional unitary transformation, transmitting or storing the transform coefficients and reconstructing the original blocks by the use of the inverse transformation. To reduce the data rate, the zero sequency coefficient is omitted for most or all the blocks, and the mean levels of the reconstructed blocks are adjusted to reduce visible brightness changes between them. The adjustment may be made to reduce the means square differences between the elements in two blocks along the common boundary. The division into blocks may give common elements in two blocks along each inter-block boundary. If a picture transition coincides with a block division an indication of this may be sent so that differences between elements along the division are ignored.