RD optimized bitstream extraction for H.264/SVC based video streaming

Heterogeneity of the Internet and clients´ operating environment necessitate the adaptation of media content to ensure a satisfactory multimedia experience. Scalable video coding (SVC) is a layer-based encoding scheme that achieves this adaptation through the extraction of partial bitstreams at reduced spatial, quality and temporal resolutions. The main focus of this paper is in developing such an extraction algorithm in the context of video streaming applications. Based on a combination of metadata computations and prediction mechanisms, our algorithm evaluates the quality contribution of each layer in the SVC bitstream and makes extraction decisions that are aimed at maximizing video quality while operating within the available bandwidth resources. When compared to earlier extraction methods such as JSVM-Basic and JSVM-QL, our algorithm offers a quality gain of 1.6 dB and 0.5 dB respectively. The proposed technique also achieves a 73% reduction in metadata computation time when compared to JSVM-QL.