H.264 SVC extension for peer to peer schemes

The H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) standard enables scalability by encoding a video stream into multiple layers or sub-streams each with different quality information. The coding creates a hierarchical structure in which the lowest layer, termed the base layer, is required for decoding. Additional enhancement layers improve the video's quality. SVC enables different quality of experience for different users based on the number of layers they receive, i.e., the number of substreams. In peer to peer streaming schemes SVC can be used in many ways. Current SVC standard enables users to exchange segments that consist of all the substreams that create together the layer of experience they desire. Enabling users to exchange segments that belong to different substreams and hence different layers can motivate a variety of applications for both wired and wireless P2P streaming. In this paper we suggest an extension to the H.264 SVC standard, that enables the transport of separate substreams, and term it SVC multiplexer. We have implemented the multiplexer as part of the JSVM software, and make it available at our site. To test the multiplexer, we have tested it in a peer-to-peer environment. An additional contribution of the paper is the comparison of SVC performance with two different segment sizes of 2 seconds and 10 seconds. Our results show that slicing the movie to a ten seconds segments actually gives a better tradeoff than the smaller two second slice.