Embodiments of the invention provide a decoder arrangement (400), wherein a decoder (420) which is adapted to decode a bitstream which has been encoded with a non-recursive convolutional encoder is used to at least partially perform the decoding of a recursive convolutionally encoded bitstream, with pre-or post-processing (410) of the bitstream being performed to complete the decoding. More particularly, in one embodiment of the invention a recursively encoded bitstream is input into a conventional decoder (420) which is adapted to decode a non-recursively encoded bitstream. The resulting intermediate output does not represent the correct decoded bitstream, but can then be subject to a post-processing step in the form of a non-recursive encoding operation (410), which effectively completes the decoding operation and provides as its output the correct decoded bitstream. Both hard decision or soft decision inputs can be used.