Scalable HEVC (SHVC)-Based video stream adaptation in wireless networks

Abstract

SHVC is the proposed scalable extension to the next-generation High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, which delivers a 50% bandwidth reduction for the same video quality when compared to the current H.264/AVC standard. SHVC further offers a scalable format that can be readily adapted to meet network conditions or terminal capabilities. Both bandwidth saving and scalability are highly desirable characteristics of adaptive video streaming applications in bandwidth-constrained, wireless networks. We implement and evaluate temporal, spatial and quality scalability schemes for SHVC on a wireless testbed. However, there is little published work on video transmission using this important extension to the emerging HEVC standard. Quality scalability in SHVC is empirically shown to deliver peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) improvements of up to 6.4dB over a previous streaming scheme for HEVC. Our SHVC streaming scheme also outperforms H.264/SVC with over 50% bandwidth saving for similar quality.