VIDEO COMPRESSION USING MULTIPLE VARIABLE LENGTH CODING METHODS FOR MULTIPLE TYPES OF TRANSFORM COEFFICIENT BLOCKS

Classifying a series of quantized transform coefficients of a block of image data into one of a pre-defined plurality of classes for entropy coding, and entropy coding the block. A class is defined by at least the size of the block and typically but not necessarily one or more other factors. The classified series is coded by one of a set of pre-defined entropy coding methods, e.g., variable length coding methods for the pre-defined classes.