Apparatus and Method for parallel digital picture encoding are disclosed. A digital picture is partitioned into two or more vertical sections. An encoder unit is selected to serve as a master and one or more encoder units are selected to serve as slaves. The total number of encoder units used equals the number of vertical sections. A mode search is performed on the two or more vertical sections on a row-by-row basis. Entropy coding is performed on the two or more vertical sections on a row-by-row basis. The entropy coding of each vertical section is performed in parallel such that each encoder unit performs entropy coding on its respective vertical section. De-blocking is performed on the two or more vertical sections in parallel on a row-by-row basis.