H.264/AVC to wavelet-based scalable video transcoding supporting multiple coding configurations

Abstract

Scalable Video Coding (SVC) enables low complexity adaptation of the compressed video, providing an efficient solution for video content delivery through heterogeneous networks and to different displays. However, legacy video and most commercially available content capturing devices use conventional non-scalable coding, e.g., H.264/AVC. This paper proposes an efficient transcoder from H.264/AVC to a wavelet-based SVC to exploit the advantages offerend by the SVC technology. The proposed transcoder is able to cope with different coding configurations in H.264/AVC, such as IPP or IBBP with multiple reference frames. To reduce the transcoder's complexity, motion information and presence of the residual data extracted from the decoded H.264/AVC video are exploited. Experimental results show a good performance of the proposed transcoder in terms of decoded video quality and system complexity.