TO INCREASE compression efficiency and networkfriendliness, the emerging ITU-T Recommendation

Abstract—This paper discusses two new frame types, SP-frames and SI-frames, defined in the emerging video coding standard, known as ITU-T Rec. H.264 or ISO/IEC MPEG-4/Part 10-AVC. The main feature of SP-frames is that identical SP-frames can be reconstructed even when different reference frames are used for their prediction. This property allows them to replace I-frames in applications such as splicing, random access, and error re-covery/resilience. We also include a description of SI-frames, which are used in conjunction with SP-frames. Finally, simulation results illustrating the coding efficiency of SP-frames are pro-vided. It is shown that SP-frames have significantly better coding efficiency than I-frames while providing similar functionalities. Index Terms—AVC, bitstream switching, error recovery, erro