Bit-depth scalable video coding using inter-layer prediction from high bit-depth layer

Scalable video coding (SVC) is currently developed as an extension of H.264/AVC video coding standard. In this paper, we propose three H.264/AVC compliant bit-depth scalable video coding schemes, named LH mode (low bit-depth to high bit-depth), HL mode (high bit-depth to low bit-depth) and combined LH-HL mode for different applications. All these schemes efficiently exploit the high correlation between the high bit-depth layer and the low bit-depth layer on macroblock level. Experimental results indicate that the HL mode outperforms the other two schemes and it achieves up to 7 dB improvement over the simulcast where the high bit-depth video and low bit-depth representations are 12-bit and 8-bit, respectively.