Patent ID: 8170121

Claim:
A method for decoding comprising: decoding a base layer bitstream into a decoded base layer sequence of fields; decoding an enhancement layer bitstream into a decoded enhancement layer sequence of fields, at least one field of the decoded enhancement layer sequence of fields decoded in dependence upon at least one of the fields of the decoded base layer sequence, wherein each given field of the decoded base layer sequence comprises one of the top and bottom fields of a corresponding frame of a frame sequence, and a temporally corresponding field of the decoded enhancement layer sequence comprises the other of the top and bottom fields of the corresponding frame of the frame sequence; combining the decoded base layer sequence and the decoded enhancement layer sequence to form a decoded frame sequence, wherein each given frame of the decoded frame sequence comprises a field of the decoded base layer sequence which corresponds temporally to the given frame and a field of the decoded enhancement layer sequence which corresponds temporally to the given frame; and outputting the decoded frame sequence.