A transcoder for transcoding digital video signals includes a decoder and an encoder. In the decoder, an end-of-block (EOB) position of an incoming block received by the decoder is determined and a discrete cosine transform (DCT) block type is determined based on the determined EOB position. A reduced number of DCT coefficients is computed in a subsequent inverse DCT computation based on the DCT block type. In the encoder, if the incoming block is intercoded, no DCT coefficients are computed after the EOB of the incoming blocks is performing a DCT. Further, in the encoder when the incoming block is intercoded, an algorithm is applied to predict which DCT coefficients may become zero after a subsequent quantization operation, and only DCT coefficients that may not become zero are computed in performing the DCT.