1. A method for compressing a sequence of digitized video images, the method including: generating a hierarchy of processed images from a digitized video image, wherein the hierarchy of processed images includes a plurality of resolution-increasing layers, each of the plurality of resolution-increasing layers having a different resolution; determining a plurality of regions within each processed image by testing various regions with various variable-length coding tables, each determined region being selected based on lossless coding efficiency; and applying a lossless variable-length coding independently to each such region.