Rate distortion optimization in the scalable video coding

This paper discusses the rate distortion optimization (RDO) issue in the scalable video coding. It is different from that in the non-scalable video coding because a scalable codec usually presents the decoded video within a certain range of the quality, frame rate and resolution. Therefore, this paper first analyzes the problem from a general model and gives a common description by the Lagrangian formula. Secondly, an algorithm is proposed to solve the above optimization problem at a specific scalable codec: the H.26L-based PFGS. At the same time, two analytic formulae are derived to ascertain the parameters lambda in this algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the coding efficiency of the H.26L-based PFGS. Further studies on this problem will be quite significant and challenging.