Some coding standards allow creation of scalable bit streams. A meaningful decoded representation can be produced by decoding only certain parts of a scalable bit stream. Scalable bit streams can be used for example for rate adaptation of pre-encoded unicast streams in a streaming server and for transmission of a single bit stream to terminals having different capabilities and/or with different network conditions. A list of some other use cases for scalable video coding can be found in the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC29 WG11 (MPEG) output document N5540, “Applications and Requirements for Scalable Video Coding”, the 64th MPEG meeting, Mar. 10 to 14, 2003, Pattaya, Thailand.
In some cases, data in an enhancement layer can be truncated after a certain location, or even at arbitrary positions, where each truncation position may include additional data representing increasingly enhanced visual quality. Such scalability is referred to as fine-grained (granularity) scalability (FGS).