DCT-based scalable video coding with drift

Scalable video coders have traditionally avoided using enhancement-layer (EL) information to predict the base layer (BL), so as to avoid so-called "drift". As a result, they are less efficient than a one-layer coder. Fine Granularity Scalable (FGS) coders avoid using EL information to predict the EL as well, suffering even further inefficiencies. In this paper, we explore a scalable video coder that allows drift, by predicting the BL from EL information. However, we show that through careful management of the amount of drift introduced, the video quality at low rates is only marginally worse than the drift-free case, while the overall compression efficiency is not much worse than a one-layer encoder.