Spatially Scalable Video Coding for HEVC

Spatially scalable video coding (SSVC in short) provides an efficient way to deliver one video at different resolutions. Based on the development of emerging High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), we propose a SSVC scheme to provide both single-loop and multi-loop solutions by enabling different inter-layer prediction mechanisms. Specifically, there are three basic inter-layer prediction modes, inter-layer intra, motion and residual prediction, which are first investigated for enhancement layer coding. These three modes provide a basic single-loop SSVC solution for low complexity applications. Beside the correlations explored in single-loop solution, we employ an extra patch learning-based prediction mode named P-mode to further improve coding performance. In P-mode, the temporal and spatial correlations of the reference frames are explored simultaneously by the visual patch-based learning and mapping at pixel level. These correlations help enhance the accuracy of the inter-layer frame prediction from the base-layer reconstruction within a multi-loop structure. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed SSVC scheme compared with simulcast case.