1. A method for compressing a sequence of digitized video images, the method including: applying a band-split filter structure to generate a band-split hierarchy from a digitized video image, the band-split hierarchy comprising at least two reduced resolution levels in which low-pass bands are created in between pixels of the digitized video image; applying a different quantization parameter value to each of such at least two reduced resolution layers; and performing subsequent encoding steps on such at least two reduced resolution layers to create a compressed output of such digitized video image.