US Patent 7369610 Enhancement layer switching for scalable video coding

An exemplary system includes a data encoder generating a base layer bitstream encoded at a base bit-rate, and a plurality of enhancement layer bitstreams encoded at different enhancement layer bit-rates, and a bitstream selection module selecting one of the enhancement layer bitstreams every video frame based on available channel bandwidth. A method includes transmitting a first enhancement layer bitstream encoded at a first bit-rate, detecting a transition in network bandwidth through a switching bit-rate, and transmitting a second enhancement layer bitstream encoded at a second bit-rate based on the transition in network bandwidth.