Coding a video stream having a plurality of frames is disclosed. A frame of a video stream is processed to determine if direct motion prediction can be applied to the macroblocks of the frame. Macroblocks to which direct motion can be applied are grouped into superblocks. The distribution of superblock size and configuration is analyzed to determine variable-length codes that can vary for each frame or segment encoded using direct prediction superblocks, thereby reducing the number of bits used to indicate superblock encoding in the encoded video stream.