Parallel Huffman decoding with applications to JPEG files

A simple parallel algorithm for decoding a Huffman encoded file is presented, exploiting the tendency of Huffman codes to resynchronize quickly, i.e. recovering after possible decoding errors, in most cases. The average number of bits that have to be processed until synchronization is analyzed and shows good agreement with empirical data. As Huffman coding is also a part of the JPEG image compression standard, the suggested algorithm is then adapted to the parallel decoding of JPEG files.