Length-limited variable-to-variable length codes for high-performance entropy coding

Arithmetic coding achieves a superior coding rate when encoding a binary source, but its lack of speed makes it an inferior choice when true high-performance encoding is needed. This paper presents the practical implementation of fast entropy coders for binary messages utilizing only bit shifts and table lookups. To limit code table size the proposed code lengths is limited with a type of variable-to-variable (VV) length code created from source string merging. This is referred to as "merged codes". With merged codes it is possible to achieve a desired level of speed by adjusting the number of bits read from the source at each step. The most efficient merged codes yield a coder with a worst-case inefficiency of 0.4%, relative to the Shannon entropy. Using a hybrid Golomb-VV bin coder the compression ratio that is competitive with other state-of-the-art coders, at a superior throughput is achieved.