A method of determining a distribution of bits for coding a transition frame, said method being implemented in a coder/decoder for coding/decoding a digital signal, the transition frame being preceded by a predictive coded preceding frame, coding the transition frame comprising transform coding and predictive coding a single sub-frame of the transition frame, the method comprising the following steps: assigning a bit rate for predictive coding the transition sub-frame, said bit rate being equal to the minimum between the bit rate for transform coding the transition frame and a first predetermined bit rate value; determining a first number of bits allocated for predictive coding the transition sub-frame for said bit rate; and calculating a second number of bits allocated for transform coding the transition frame from the first number of bits and a number of bits available for coding the transition frame.