Multimedia application data formats often use data packets and may contain packetized hierarchical layers with a base layer (BL) and one or more enhancement layers (EL). Packets that comprise variable length coded data typically provide padding bits, which can be used for adding checksum information. The checksum information refers to both, the decoded base layer and decoded enhancement layer packet data, and is used for detecting synchronization loss between the layers. Though the packets provide different individual amounts of padding bits, this variable amount of bits per packet is sufficient for adding check-sum information for synchronization related purposes. This allows e.g. out-of-sync detection even if the enhancement layer encoding provides no overhead information for synchronization, in particular no packet headers and no packet synchronization words.