Efficient receiver-driven layered video multicast using H.263+ SNR scalability

We discuss the implementation of receiver-driven rate adaptation using multicast and SNR scalability as supported by Version 2 of ITU-T Recommendation H.263-Video Coding for Low Bit Rate Communication. We compare the layered bit stream approach to receiver-driven rate adaptivity to the approach using multiple independent bit streams. We show that although the independent, non-scalable bit streams perform better in a rate-distortion sense at the receiver, the layered bit streams cause less congestion at the intermediate network segments