Spatial enhancement layer utilisation for SVC in base layer error concealment

The Scalable Video Coding (SVC) has been recently added as an extension to H.264/AVC standard. This extension allows both bit rate and device capability adaptation which are desirable features especially in error-prone wireless heterogeneous networks. This paper investigates the spatio-temporal error concealment techniques for packet losses in wireless IP networks, where scalable video coding (SVC) can be used. Three methods are introduced: pixel-value interpolation, frame copy and a new method, which utilises the correctly received spatial enhancement layer information if the corresponding base layer is missing. Unlike the new method, the traditional methods discard the corresponding enhancement layer data in the case when the base layer is missing. The simulation results indicate that enhancement layer utilisation provides better results in the case of a missing base layer than the traditional error concealment methods improving the image quality on average 2 dB.