A video transmission system includes a transceiver module that transmits a video signal to a remote device over at least one RF communications channel wherein the video signal is transmitted as at least one separate video layer stream chosen from, an independent video layer stream and at least one dependent video layer streams that require the independent video layer for decoding. A control module determines at least one channel characteristic of the at least one RF channel and chooses the at least one separate video layer stream based on the at least one channel characteristic of the at least one RF channel.