Spatially Scalable Video Coding For HEVC

Abstract

Spatially scalable video coding (SSVC) provides an efficient way to transmit one video at different resolutions. Based on the emerging High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), we propose an SSVC scheme to support both single-loop (SL) and multiloop (ML) solutions by enabling different interlayer prediction mechanisms. Specifically, we employ two interlayer prediction modes: quadtree-based prediction mode (Q-mode) and learning-based prediction mode (L-mode). The Q-mode is investigated to exploit the interlayer redundancy based on the quadtree coding structure of HEVC. Due to the high correlation between layers, Q-mode utilizes the coded information from the base layer quadtree, including coding unit split, prediction unit partition, motion information, and partial texture information of transform unit, to predict the enhancement layer quadtree. By enabling Q-mode, we provide a basic SL solution for low complexity applications. Besides the correlation explored in Q-mode, we employ an extra L-mode to further improve the coding performance. In L-mode, the temporal-spatial correlation is exploited simultaneously by visual patch-based learning and mapping at pixel level. This helps us achieve more accurate prediction signals based on the coarse base layer reconstruction within an ML structure. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our SSVC scheme compared with the simulcast case and other HEVC-based SSVC schemes.