VIDEO TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COMPRESSING AND DECOMPRESSING DIGITAL COLOR VIDEO DATA

The method and system of compressing and decompressing digital color video data in a video communication system utilizes a digital color video signal having three video color components, and involves the determination of a predetermined number of the most visually significant combinations of color components in a picture frame, and the encoding of the color components as compressed color codes in a series of run length and compressed color code combinations. Line-to-line differences and movement of edges and segments of the picture frames are determined, and frame-to-frame differences are also encoded to reduce the amount of information to a minimum. Further statistical encoding of at least a portion of the run length and color code combinations is also provided. The digitally compressed color component codes are decoded according to a look up table to form a table of the three digital color components for each run length, and the run lengths and corresponding color components are stored in an array in a buffer memory to represent the scan lines in a video picture frame.