Intra prediction mode coding for scalable HEVC

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard introduced an increased number of intra prediction directions in order to improve intra prediction performance by efficiently modeling the directional structures found in typical video contents. Efficient coding of intra prediction mode information is realized through a Most Probable Mode (MPM) list approach. In a scalable system, due to high correlation between the layers, utilization of base layer intra prediction mode can improve coding performance. In this paper, we propose a new intra prediction mode coding algorithm for scalable extension of HEVC where only the difference between the intra prediction modes of base and enhancement layers is coded. We provide experimental results and also a comparison of the proposed algorithm with an MPM list based approach where base layer intra prediction mode is added to the list as the most probable mode. Experimental results show BD-rate gains up to 1.1% in 2x spatial scalability and 0.7% in 1.5x scalability for all intra configuration.