System and transport interface of H.264/AVC scalable extension

The scalable extension of H.264/AVC, known as Scalable Video Coding or SVC, has recently been the main focus of the Joint Video Team. The higher level syntax of SVC follows the design principles of H.264/AVC. This allows the work towards an optimized file format and RTP payload format to be conducted in parallel with the core SVC specification. This paper provides an overview of the system and transport interface design of SVC, including the SVC high-level syntax and functionalities, SVC file format, and SVC RTP payload format.