An operational rate-distortion optimal single-pass SNR scalable video coder

In this paper, we introduce a new methodology for single pass signal-to-noi se ratio (SNR) video scalability based on the partitioning of the DCT coeff icients. The DCT coefficients of the displaced frame difference (DFD) for i nter-blocks or the intensity for intra-blocks are partitioned into a base l ayer and one or more enhancement layers, thus, producing an embedded bitstr eam. Subsets of this bitstream can be transmitted with increasing video qua lity as measured by the SNR. Given a it budget for the base and enhancement layers the partitioning of the DCT coefficients is done in a way that is o ptimal in the operational rate-distortion sense. The optimization is perfor med using Lagrangian relaxation and dynamic programming (DP). Experimental results are presented and conclusions are drawn.