A method and apparatus for pixel-by-pixel motion and/or still video data compression and decompression. Each pixel may be encoded as static, new, or direcionally estimated. Directionally estimated pixels are encoded with a value corresponding to a direction in a reduced set of substantially unique directions, wherein each direction may correspond to one or a combination of pixels. Directionally estimated pixels are further encoded using an adaptive variable length code (VLC), while static pixels and new pixels are encoded using run-lenth (RL) coding and delta coding techniques, respectively. Performance parameters, such as compression ratio, quality, etc., may be monitored to dynamically and adaptively update compression thresholds. Pixel processing may be performed in a plurality of directions to improve performance.