SVC can be used to implement rate adaptation for Internet Video streaming applications. Traditional adaptive streaming methods require that video streams be encoded at multiple bit rates and resolutions so that when the Internet bandwidth available to a given user changes an appropriately sized stream can be selected and transmitted to the user. This method has significant overhead because each stream must be encoded and stored many times over. With SVC a single multi-layer stream can be encoded and the appropriate layer extracted and transmitted based on the network conditions at that moment. This is illustrated below.
In a typical high definition Internet TV application SVC based rate adaptation can yield file size savings of at least 3x to 4x over traditional Adaptive Streaming methods.
SVC also allows significant cost savings and performance improvements in Internet Video infrastructure. As shown below, SVC can provide significant savings in distribution costs, server costs as well as improvements in caching performance.