HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) is rapidly evolving into a key video delivery technology, supported by implementations from Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe, and actively pursued by standardization organizations. Using segments in multiple video qualities, distributed via an already available Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) delivery infrastructure, a HAS client is able to seamlessly adapt to the available bandwidth in the network. However, existing HAS solutions have a number of disadvantages such as the additional storage and bandwidth requirements, a large playout buffer to absorb network impairments, and a non-optimal quality selection under fluctuating network conditions. In this paper, we investigate the opportunity of combining HAS with scalable video coding. We show that this combination creates possibilities to reduce the client buffer, which implies improvements for live and interactive video, and reduces storage requirements, increases the cache hit-ratio for supporting content delivery network (CDN) nodes, and demonstrates more robust behavior in the HAS client, ultimately improving the quality of experience (QoE) for the viewer. © 2012 Alcatel-Lucent.