FAST DATA STREAM DECODING USING APRIORI INFORMATION

Methods and systems for improving performance of data decoding using apriori information about the data steam. In one aspect a decoder may determine the degree of lossiness inherent in the data or in the application of the data as a maximum resolution of data to be decoded and may thereby streamline entropy decoding of the data. For example, in DCT-based image data compression coupled with Huffman or other entropy encoding, apriori data may be analyzed to determine the maximum required resolution in bits of the DCT encoded data so as to simplify the entropy decoding. Other aspects optimize DCT decoding computation with faster approximations where the quantization values indicate a higher degree of lossiness or noise in the DCT encoded data. Apriori information may generally comprise values in the quantization table of a DCT encoded image and may be analyzed to determine the maximum symbol size and/or degree of lossiness.