Patent ID: 8867624

Claim:
A scalable video compression method for encoding an input frame sequence having temporally sequential frames, the method comprising: partitioning each of the frames of the input frame sequence into a top field and a bottom field to form a base layer sequence of fields and an enhancement layer sequence of fields, the base layer sequence and the enhancement layer sequence each comprising temporally alternating top and bottom fields of the partitioned frames of the input frame sequence, wherein each given field of the base layer sequence comprises one of the top and bottom fields of a corresponding partitioned frame of the input frame sequence, and a temporally corresponding field of the enhancement layer sequence comprises the other of the top and bottom fields of the corresponding partitioned frame of the input frame sequence; encoding the base layer sequence to form a base layer bitstream; encoding the enhancement layer sequence to form an enhancement layer bitstream, wherein at least one field of the enhancement layer sequence is encoded in dependence upon at least one of the fields of the base layer sequence; and outputting the base layer bitstream and the enhancement layer bitstream.