EREC-Based Length Coding of Variable-Length Data Blocks

This paper investigates error-resilient transmission of variable-length-coding bitstream. We propose a method for coding the lengths of variable-length data blocks based on the error-resilient entropy coding (EREC). The idea is converting the problem of coding VLB lengths into the problem of coding the number of blank bits in fixed-length EREC slots. We give the upper bound of side information (SI) cost. To combat error propagation in SI bits, we rearrange SI bits into EREC structure. Detailed decoder design is given, which reveals that the proposed algorithm simplifies EREC decoder design by decomposing the decoder into three serially concatenated components. Experimental results show that the proposed method is economical and robust.