Practical rate control algorithm for temporal scalability in scalable video coding

A rate control algorithm for hierarchical B-pictures in Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is proposed in this work. The complex inter-frame dependency issue is effectively addressed by the Q-distance policy decision rule while the statistical smoothing effect enables the GOP-based precise bit rate control. The simplicity of the decision processes greatly reduces the encoder complexity providing an efficient and effective rate control algorithm with hierarchical B-pictures. Experimental results verify the significant performance gain by the proposed algorithm.