A virtual SPIHT (VSPIHT) technique that is based on the SPIHT and virtual z
ero-tree concepts is proposed. It combines virtually generated zero trees o
n the top of SPIHT's zero trees to reduce the effective number of zero tree
s. The simulation results show that the proposed video coder is more effici
ent compared to SPIHT based video coders, particularly at very low bit rate
s.