A water ring encoding apparatus configured to process an initial data set, such as a video image frame, is disclosed. The water ring encoding apparatus includes a a scanner and an encoder. The initial data set is organized with at least one initial origin enveloped by a plurality of nested initial environs successively surrounding each other in the initial data set. The scanner is configured to write a portion of the data from the initial data set into a scanned data string by starting at the RC grouping corresponding to the initial origin (initial water ring (0)) and by sequentially progressing outwardly from the family of RC groupings corresponding to the nearest nested initial environ (initial water ring (1)) towards the family of RC groupings corresponding to a furthest nested initial environ (initial water ring (n)). The encoder is configured to encode the scanned data string into an encoded data string.