METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR BINARIZATION AND ARITHMETIC CODING OF A DATA VALUE

Binarization a data value comprises binarizing the minimum of the data value and a predetermined cut-off value in accordance with a first binarization scheme, in order to yield a primary prefix. If the data value is greater than the cut-off value, binarizing a difference of the data value minus the predetermined cut-off value in accordance with a second binarization scheme to obtain a binary suffix, the first binarization scheme being different from the second binarization scheme, and appending the primary suffix to the primary prefix is performed. A very effective compression of data values may be achieve by using the binarization scheme for preparing the syntax elements for the arithmetic coding, the binarization schemes substantially being a combination of two different binarization schemes, and by using binary arithmetic coding instead of m-ary arithmetic coding for coding the binarized syntax elements.