Patent ID: 7020205

Claim:
A method for encoding video signals, comprising the steps of: receiving a progressive video bitstream comprising reference frames and non-reference frames, each having an initial temporal reference in accordance with an initial frame sequence structure, the reference frames excluding any B frames; remapping the temporal references of only the reference frames while ignoring the non-reference frames to provide backwards compatibility of the reference frames for a subsequent MP@ML decoding process despite a presence of the non-reference frames; and packetizing the reference frames with a base packet-identifier (PID) and the non-reference frames with an enhancement PID, to provide base and enhancement transport bitstreams, respectively, such that packets of the base transport bitstream are capable of being extracted based on the base PID and decoded in the subsequent MP@ML decoding process to provide an MP@ML decoded video bitstream suitable for display on standard definition television (“SDTV”) systems, and such that the packets of the base transport bitstream are capable of being extracted based on the base PID and packets of the enhancement transport bitstream are capable of being extracted based on the enhancement PID and combined in a subsequent MP@HL decoding process to provide an MP@HL decoded video bitstream suitable for display on high definition television (“HDTV”) systems.