A decoding method is disclosed. The decoding method comprises:determining an index from a bitstream, the index identifying a coding element in a set of a plurality of coding elements;decoding a picture block from the bitstream using the coding element of the set identified by the index.In a specific embodiment, determining the index comprises:determining, for each coding element in the set, a probability that the coding element was used for encoding the picture block; anddetermining the index responsive to the determined probabilities.