Quantization level binarization in video coding

A method for decoding a picture of a video, the picture comprising a current transform unit, the method comprising:

• decompressing, by a processor, a bitstream to obtain a binary representation of a current position in the current transform unit, and a value of a Rice parameter of the current position for Golomb-Rice binarization, wherein the value of the Rice parameter is determined based on a value of a history variable for a previous transform unit preceding the current transform unit, and the value of the history variable is determined based on at least one of a bit depth or a bit rate for decoding the picture;
• converting, by the processor, the binary representation into a quantization level of the current position using Golomb-Rice binarization with the value of the Rice parameter;
• and
• dequantizing, by the processor, the quantization level of the current position to generate a coefficient of the current position;
• wherein the value of the history variable is determined based on a value of an offset and a first, non-zero, Golomb-Rice coded quantization level of the quantization levels of the previous transform unit.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a bitstream and a computer program, wherein when executed by a processor, the computer program causes the processor to generate the bitstream by executing a method for encoding a picture of a video, the picture comprising a current transform unit, the method comprising:

• quantizing a coefficient of each position in the current transform unit to generate quantization levels of the current transform unit;
• determining a value of a Rice parameter of a current position in the current transform unit for Golomb-Rice binarization based on a value of a history variable for a previous transform unit preceding the current transform unit, wherein the value of the history variable is determined based on at least one of a bit depth or a bit rate for encoding the picture;
• converting the quantization level of the current position into a binary representation using Golomb-Rice binarization with the value of the Rice parameter;
• and
• compressing the binary representation of the current position into the bitstream;
• wherein the method further comprises:
• determining the value of the history variable based on a value of an offset and a first, non-zero, Golomb-Rice coded quantization level of the quantization levels of the previous transform unit.