Method for processing a digital image and image representation format

1. A method for determining where a next data unit of a bit stream of an image starts, said method comprising:

analyzing a first part of a bit stream entry, the bit stream entry being included in a data unit,

determining from said analysis of the first part of the bit stream entry the number of bits used by the bit stream entry,

skipping the number of bits determined to be used by the bit stream entry, and

determining if an end of block symbol has been reached, if an end of block symbol has not been reached then a new bit stream entry starting at the end of the previous is analyzed.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first part of the bit stream entry includes a Huffman-code representing how many zero coefficients that precedes the current coefficient and in which category the value of the current coefficient is, the category determining the number of bits of a second part of the bit stream entry.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the number of bits in the bit stream entry is determined by a table lookup.

4. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising:

looking at a bit sequence of a predetermined number of bits in the bit stream, and

wherein the act of analyzing includes making a table lookup of the looked at bit sequence.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the table lookup is made for the first eight bits in the bit sequence and if this first table lookup is not sufficient for determining a first part of a Huffman-code a further table lookup is performed.

6. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the table lookup return information of at least two Huffman-codes and wherein the act of skipping includes skipping the number of bits of said at least two bit stream entries.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising summing the number of skipped bits until an end of block symbol is encountered.

8. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising storing information indicating the number of bits between adjacent coefficients of specified order.

9. The method according claims 1 , further comprising storing an indicator indicating a bit offset to a coefficient of a specified order from the start of the bitstream.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the image is encoded in accordance with the JPEG standard.