Performance analysis of inter-layer prediction in scalable extension of HEVC (SHVC) for adaptive media service

•Field: performance of inter-layer prediction techniques for supporting adaptive video service.•Core Algorithm: we have analyzed the related algorithms and methods in SHVC as the recent video standard technology.•Applications: media adaptation service according to display sizes, network bandwidth, and capacity of user’s devices.

Scalable video coding (SVC) has been a popular research topic to provide an adaptive media service for many years. To deliver very high quality content such as ultra high definition (UHD) video in various environment, a scalable extension of high efficiency video coding (SHVC) has been developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) of ISO/IEC MPEG and ITU-T VCEG. This paper introduces the SHVC standard technology and analyzes the performance of inter-layer prediction as an important feature. Unlike the previous scalable video coding technologies, the SHVC standard employs a multi-loop decoding structure. Also, inter-layer prediction scheme is used to remove the redundancy between layers when encoding enhancement layer syntax elements, such as motion parameters and the intra prediction mode. This paper reviews inter-layer prediction techniques that have been developed for the SHVC standard. The performance of inter-layer prediction techniques is verified and analyzed using the SHVC reference software 5.0.