According to the SVC specification, the pictures with the lowest spatial 410 and quality 412 layer are compatible with H.264/AVC, and the pictures at the lowest temporal level 414 form the temporal base layer, which can be enhanced with pictures at higher temporal levels. In addition to the H.264/AVC compatible layer, several spatial and/or SNR enhancement layers can be added to provide spatial and/or quality scalabilities. SNR scalability 406 is also referred as quality scalability. Each spatial 404 or SNR 406 enhancement layer itself may be temporally scalable, with the same temporal scalability structure as the H.264/AVC compatible layer. For one spatial or SNR enhancement layer, the lower layer it depends on is also referred as the base layer of that specific spatial or SNR enhancement layer.