A method and system for decoding symbols of variable length in a digital video bit stream in real time, using Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architecture. In one embodiment, several bit sections are first read from a bit stream. While the first bit section will correspond to a valid symbol in the bit-stream, the rest of the bit sections may or may not, depending on the length of the first section. A table of variable length codes is then indexed to obtain a look-up result for each of the read-in bit sections, which done in parallel for all sections. Next, a determination is made as to whether each of the look-up results is valid. A valid look-up result provides the length of the symbol. The valid look-up values are then accepted. In another embodiment the bit stream is thereafter advanced by the sum of all accepted look-up results.