Multiple Description Transmission and Resolution Conversion of Compressed Data

A system provides lossless split and merge processes of integer discrete cosine transform (DCT) transformed data such that the discrete cosine transform of one data block may be split into two half length DCT odd and even blocks for merging, with split and merge processes being lossless and are generated in the discrete cosine transformed domain. After splitting, the redundancy existing between the two integer discrete cosine transformed half data blocks allows one to approximately reconstruct the original data block in case one of the discrete cosine transformed half data block is lost during transmission. The system may be used with existing JPEG and MPEG compressors and decompressors because both use the discrete cosine transform for image and video compression and decompression, may be used as a resolution conversion device for transcribing from digital high-definition TV to analog low-definition TV, and may be used for lossless splitting and merging type-IV discrete cosine transformed data for audio compression and decompression in the international standard MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), such as AC-3 or MP3.