Luminance signal coefficient data and chroma signal coefficient data are mixed in a signal string mixing circuit and supplied to a reverse run generating circuit where a run is taken in a reverse direction with respect to the encoding direction. The run is supplied to a variable length encoding circuit for being processed with variable length encoding so that encoding is performed while the relation on the time base between the signals is maintained. This leads to an improved encoding efficiency at the time of variable length encoding. <IMAGE>
Method and apparatus for variable length coding