1. A scalable decoder system having a decoder reconstruction system, wherein the decoder reconstruction system comprises: an estimation algorithm for estimating a lost discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficient, wherein the estimation algorithm includes a density distribution dependent on at least one unknown parameter {circumflex over (&agr;)} l ; and a parameter estimation algorithm for estimating {circumflex over (&agr;)} l according to the equation: 27 α ^ l = - log &af; ( 1 - P ^ l ) b l, wherein b l denotes each of a set of quantizer decision levels l, and {circumflex over (P)} l is the sum of a set of a normalized frequency of occurrences of data quantized to each quantizer decision level 1,2,..., l.