Scalable video coding extension of H.264/AVC

SVC (scalable video coding) was introduced as an amendment of H.264/AVC by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) in 2007. SVC can provide different types of scalability and retain reconstruction quality characteristics similar to single layer H.264/AVC but in trade of higher complexity of the decoder compared to H.264/AVC. This paper presents an overview of improved H.264/AVC standard and describes tools for supporting temporal scalability, spatial and SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) scalability. Temporal scalability is realized by the hierarchical B-frame (bi-predictive picture) structure which shows better results than structures used in prior video coding standards. Spatial scalability uses inter-layer prediction from any other layer and residual prediction which shows better results in coding efficiency. For quality scalability different methods are analyzed and the results are compared. The paper illustrates the results for coding efficiency with concept of using combined types of scalability.