Method and apparatus for storing base and additive streams of video

A computer-implemented method of creating stored digital video information comprising the steps of:

• inputting a sequence of digital video pictures, each of said digital video pictures containing a plurality of slices, and each of said slices containing a plurality of blocks, each block representing one of luminance and chrominance information;
• segmenting said information in each of said blocks into a base stream and a plurality of additive streams, each said additive stream containing additive data that corresponds to base data associated with said base stream, such that additional additive data from each additive stream provides increasingly greater resolution of said one luminance and chrominance information for each block;
• associating one of a plurality of distinct stream identification codes with said base data stream and each of said additive streams;
• associating a drop frame code with each said digital video picture, said drop frame code providing an indication of whether said associated digital video picture should be dropped during a subsequent transmission of said additive streams when said stored digital video information is read out from memory;
• storing on a memory said plurality of distinct stream identification codes and drop frame codes and, for each of said distinct stream identification codes, storing said associated base data or additive data so that said base data and said additive data can be identified when being read out from said memory;
• wherein a particular drop frame code associated with a particular digital video picture of said sequence of digital video picture indicates, for each particular frame rate of a plurality of different frame rates, whether the particular digital video picture should be dropped at that particular frame rate;
• wherein a first plurality of frame rates represented by drop frame codes associated with a first additive stream of said plurality of additive streams differs from a second plurality of frame rates represented by drop frame codes associated with a second additive stream of said plurality of additive streams;
• wherein each of the steps is performed by one or more computing machines.