In a system for encoding and decoding high frequency video information, an input video signal includes a high frequency band containing information to be encoded, and a lower frequency band. The frequency spectrum of the input video signal is folded around a frequency in the lower frequency band. A resulting folded video signal is combined with the input video signal to produce a combined signal which is low pass filtered by a filter having a cut-off frequency corresponding to the folding frequency. The filtered combined signal is separated into its constituent filtered video signal and filtered folded video signal parts. The separated folded video signal component is unfolded around the folding frequency to produce an unfolded video signal with frequencies in the high frequency band. The unfolded video signal is joined to the high frequency band of the separated video signal to produce an output video signal having a high frequency band with the uppermost frequencies thereof determined primarily by the unfolded video signal.