A method of binarizing an input symbol using a hybrid Truncated Rice/k-th order exp-Golomb binarization scheme with a Rice Parameter includes: determining a threshold; comparing the input symbol with the threshold; constructing a codeword using a Truncated Rice (TR) binarization process for the input symbol when a comparison result belongs to a first type of comparison result; and constructing a codeword with an initial prefix and a suffix for the input symbol when the comparison result belongs to a second type of comparison result; wherein the suffix is constructed using an exp-Golomb binarization process.