Reduced complexity VLC sequence decoder

This paper discusses the reduced complexity VLC sequence decoder. The proposed decoding algorithm benefits from all the constraints that can be expressed on the whole sequence. It uses the notion of "survivor sequence" as in the Viterbi algorithm (VA), and applies it to variable length code decoding. The survivor selection takes into account the conventional Viterbi metric, the VLC structure and the source semantics constraints on the sequence. The proposed reduced complexity decoder using the VLC structure projection and intrinsic image properties has been evaluated and compared with the conventional prefix-based VLC decoder, and the existing decoder using only the projection on the VLC structure, and the optimal decoder.