System and method for entropy code preprocessing

A system and method for preprocessing a bitstream of compressed video data is presented herein. The bitstream of compressed video data can include, for example, a bitstream in accordance with the MPEG AVC standard. The bitstream is received and modified by a preprocessor to facilitate multi-row decoding. The modifications to the bitstream can include identification of starting points of macroblock rows with row headers. Additionally, multi-row decoding is further facilitated by generation of decode descriptors which indicate the starting row positions in the modified bit stream. Additionally, the modified bit stream can be formatted in accordance with a simpler coding scheme to simplify decompression.