Non-reversible differential predictive compression using lossy or lossless tables

摘要

In a method and a device for transforming a stream of digital numbers, the correlation between successive numbers is utilized in order to obtain a new stream having a very low correlation between the numbers, whereby the sequence of numbers can be coded much more efficiently from a compression point of view. The numbers are for this purpose coded with the difference between a predicted number (s'(i)) and the actual number (s(i)) taking into account that the sequence does not need to be possible to decode in reverse order. The non-reversible codes can also be applied in lossy data compression schemes. Such schemes can change in accordance with the currently available bandwidth in order to obtain a graceful degradation and optimal bandwidth usage when the compressed data stream is transmitted over a channel having a time varying bandwidth. A general method and device for reversible coding are also provided.