bitet

Bitet, short for Binary-Ternary Encoding Technique, is a theoretical data encoding scheme conceived to explore the potential benefits of mixing binary and ternary symbols within a single coding framework. In bitet, input symbols are mapped to sequences drawn from an alphabet that includes two-symbol and three-symbol blocks. The encoding process creates a prefix-free code using a mixed-base decision structure, ensuring that each encoded sequence can be uniquely decoded without reliance on external framing. Decoding mirrors the encoding by traversing the decision structure according to the incoming symbol stream, yielding the original symbol sequence.

The concept has appeared primarily in information-theoretic discussions and experimental simulations since the 2010s. Proponents argue that bitet can yield compression advantages for sources with skewed symbol distributions and that the ternary component can offer modest resilience against certain error patterns when paired with simple error-detection bits. Critics caution that the practical gains are highly data-dependent and that the required codebook synchronization between encoder and decoder increases complexity and latency relative to conventional binary codes. Hardware implementations, when considered, face increased circuit complexity and memory requirements to store multiple base alphabets.

Variants of bitet explore different ratios of binary to ternary symbols and alternative tree construction algorithms, including adaptive schemes that adjust the codebook based on observed data. While not widely deployed in commercial systems, bitet has informed discussions on hybrid coding strategies and the broader study of non-binary bases in data representation. Related topics include prefix codes, Huffman coding, arithmetic coding, and error-detecting codes.