Digital video signals are processed by a plurality of independently operating processors (42, 44, 46, 48) to provide data for transmission in a compressed, motion compensated form. A video image frame area (10) is divided into a set of subframes (12, 16, 20, 24). The set of subframes is systematically shifted such that the individual subframes progressively cycle across and wrap around the video image frame area. For each successive video frame, video image data bounded by each of the different subframes is independently compressed using motion estimation to reduce data redundancy among the successive frames. The motion estimation is limited for each subframe of a current video frame to areas of a previous video frame that were bounded by the same subframe in the previous frame. In an illustrated embodiment, the set of subframes (12, 16, 20, 24) is shifted once for each successive video frame, and each subframe includes a refresh region (14, 18, 22, 26) whereby the video image frame area (10) is progressively refreshed as the subframes are shifted thereacross. Receiver apparatus (60-82) for use in decoding the independently processed subframe data is also disclosed.