In an encoder responsive to a sequence of coefficient blocks each of which is composed of a plurality of orthogonal transform coefficients subjected to predictive encoding and orthogonal transform, the coefficient blocks are classified by a classification circuit (55) into a plurality of classes to produce a control signal (CONT) representative of the classes. A quantization unit (60), a code conversion unit (61), and a coefficient selection unit (62, 64) are controlled by the control signal to select quantization characteristics, code conversion characteristics, and coefficient selection characteristics. The quantization unit comprises a plurality of quantizers corresponding to the quantization characteristics while the code conversion unit and the coefficient selection unit comprise a plurality of code converters and a plurality of selection tables corresponding to the code conversion characteristics and the coefficient selection characteristics, respectively. Consequently, the coefficients are adaptively encoded into a reduced amount of encoded codes on encoding a moving image.