High Frequency SAO for scalable extension of HEVC

Scalable extension of HEVC, a.k.a. SHVC, is being standardized by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). SHVC employs one of the most important coding tools called interlayer prediction, in which. Reconstructed base layer pictures can be used as reference pictures to predict enhancement layer pictures. Therefore, how to efficiently generate interlayer reference pictures to improve coding efficiency is one of the core research topics for the new international standard. In this paper, we presented High Frequency SAO filter (HF-SAO), which extends Sample Adaptive Offset filter (SAO) in HEVC to SHVC. Experimental results based on SHVC reference software version 1.0 show that HFSAO achieves 1.2% (Luma), 1.4% (Cb), 1.4% (Cr) average BD-rate reduction for the enhancement layer coding, which makes itself one of the most promising candidate interlayer filters to the new generation of scalable video coding standard.