Method and apparatus for video compression using multi-state dynamical predictive systems

Digital video data is encoded by using the evolving states of cellular automata. The video stream is decomposed into reference frames that are separated by blocks of intermediate video frames. The reference frames are transformed with transform basis functions derived from the evolving cellular automata. The ensuing transform coefficients are encoded using a sub-band-based embedded stream technique that places the most important coefficients at the top of a hierarchical storage/transmission. Compression of the reference frames is achieved when the stream encoding/decoding is terminated after: 1) a stipulated maximum bit budget is reached, or 2) when a predefined maximum error rate is attained. The intermediate frames are encoded by a predictive method that utilizes one-dimensional multi-state dynamical system. An encoding method is provided for accelerating the transmission of video data through communications networks and storing the compressed data on digital storage media.