Spatially scalable video coding with an efficient two-layered architecture
In this paper, an efficient spatially scalable video coding scheme with a two-layered architecture is proposed. In this architecture, two spatial layers are referred to as a base layer and an enhancement layer. The base layer is coded to be compatible to H.264 standard, and when coding the enhancement layer, a new inter layer intra coding method (ILICM) is used to improve the coding efficiency. ILICM intends to use a few specific pixels in the up-sampled and decoded base layer block to predict the corresponding block in enhancement layer, when those original predictors are not available. Besides, in order to interpolate the base layer data, a graceful component-based up-sampling method (CUSM) is also introduced in this paper. Based on the human vision system, CUSM assigns a much simpler up-sampling filter for the chroma component due to its lower sensitivity for human eyes. Generally, proposed schemes including ILICM and CUSM are expected to increase the coding performance of enhancement layer and reduce the computing complexity of the decoder, respectively. Experimental results show that, the PSNR values of luma component of encoded frames are increased with no additional cost on coded bit-rate for ILICM method, while CUSM method can also maintain the coding performance under the theoretically significant reduction of computational complexity.
scalable video coding h.264 intra coding up-sampling chroma components spatial domain