Methods and systems provide approaches to start code emulation prevention at a granularity higher than the bit level. In various embodiments, start code emulation prevention can occur at locations other than data boundaries such as byte boundaries and the like. These embodiments can be used in connection with systems that do not always preserve data alignment boundaries in the data that is processed. In some systems, the described techniques can provide a basis from which decoder systems can recover in the event that data boundaries are lost.