Efficient scalable DCT-based video coding at low bit rates

It is well-known that flexibility and error resilience are significantly improved by employing a scalable bit stream. The major drawback of multi-layered representations within a motion compensated (MC) discrete cosine transform (DCT) based framework is the increase in bit rate as compared to a single-layered representation having the same frequency, spatial and temporal resolution as in the highest layer of the multi-layered representation. Using rate-distortion (RD) optimization techniques, we can improve the compression efficiency of MC-DCT based SNR and spatially scalable video coding framework. We first show how RD optimization techniques can be applied independently for each layer. We then extend the framework to consider coding decisions jointly across layers.