Patent ID: 8306107

Claim:
A method for encoding video data in a bit depth scalable manner, wherein an enhancement layer video is predicted from a reconstructed base layer video, and wherein at least a first and a different second indication are added to the data to define the process of bit depth scalability, wherein if the first indication has a first value, no bit depth inter-layer prediction is utilized; if the first indication has a second value, it specifies that bit depth inter-layer prediction is utilized, wherein the type of inter-layer prediction depends on the value of the second indication, wherein if the second indication has a first value, inter-layer prediction based on bit-shift is used; and if the second indication has another than the first value, an advanced bit depth prediction is utilized, wherein two new syntax elements are added: a first syntax element to signal the process of color bit depth scalability, which if it is equal to one specifies that the color bit depth prediction process is invoked in the inter-layer prediction, and otherwise specifies that no process of color bit depth prediction is invoked; a second syntax element to specify the approach for color bit depth inter-layer prediction, which if it is equal to zero specifies that the operation of bit-shift is utilized as the color bit depth inter-layer prediction, and otherwise advanced color bit depth prediction is utilized as the color bit depth inter-layer prediction.