An adaptable binary entropy coder

We present a novel entropy coding technique which is based on recursive interleaving of variable-to-variable length binary source codes. The encoding is adaptable in that each bit to be encoded may have an associated probability estimate which depends on previously encoded bits. The technique may have advantages over arithmetic coding. The technique can achieve arbitrarily small redundancy, and admits a simple and fast decoder. We discuss code design and performance estimation methods, as well as practical encoding and decoding algorithms.