The Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) is demonstrating a multilayer Versatile Video Coding (VVC/H.266) workflow at IBC 2026, showing how a common video base layer can be combined with enhancement layers to support personalised viewing experiences and spatial scalability.
The demonstration illustrates how VVC enhancement layers can add or modify elements of the viewing experience, including captions, sign language and reframed visuals, while reusing a common base video layer. This approach can allow different versions of the viewing experience to share the same underlying video rather than requiring each variation to be encoded and delivered as a completely separate stream.
For example, an enhancement layer could provide a sign-language presentation or a differently framed version of the content for viewers who select that experience. The base video remains common across viewers, while the enhancement layer provides the additional or modified visual information needed for the selected presentation.
The demonstration also explores spatial scalability, where a lower-resolution base layer can be combined with an enhancement layer to produce a higher-resolution viewing experience. One configuration demonstrates HDR UHD video using an HD base layer with 2x scaling, while another demonstrates SDR HD video using a 720p base layer with 1.5x scaling.
By separating the base video from the information required to enhance or modify it, multilayer VVC provides an alternative to creating and distributing independent video streams for every resolution, presentation or viewing option.
The IBC demonstration compares this dual-layer approach with conventional single-layer coding and with delivery in which the base layer is simply upscaled at the receiving device. The comparison is designed to illustrate where enhancement-layer coding can provide higher visual quality more efficiently than relying on an upscaled lower-resolution stream, while retaining the flexibility of a shared base layer.
This capability could become increasingly relevant as broadcasters, streaming services and other video providers seek to offer more personalised and accessible viewing experiences without multiplying the number of complete video streams they must encode, manage and distribute. Multilayer delivery could also provide greater flexibility for serving devices and networks with different resolution and bandwidth requirements from a common content architecture.
“This demonstration provides a practical example of how VVC can extend beyond compression efficiency to address the way video services are packaged and delivered,” said Ralf Schaefer, Vice President of Standards Research and Innovation, InterDigital, Inc. “By combining a common base layer with enhancement layers, video providers can explore new ways to support different resolutions, accessibility features and personalised viewing experiences without treating every version as an entirely separate video service.”
MC-IF is demonstrating the technology during IBC 2026 in Amsterdam at Hall 2–2.B13.
Visit https://www.mc-if.org
