In this paper we report on an implementation and evaluation of Internet priority dropping schemes and their application to layered video transmissions. The incremental decoding of each of the different layers of such an hierarchical video stream leads to an enhancement of the video quality, whereas the absence of a layer renders the receipt of higher layers useless. Thereby the layers have a specific order of precedence, which reflects their importance on the video quality and on the decoding process. We accommodate this hierarchy by mapping the video layers on different traffic classes implemented in a Differentiated Services network. We present a thorough evaluation of these schemes and we demonstrate the performance gain, if different Quality of Service classes for the transmission of the different layers are applied. Further on we address the interaction between non-responsive video flows and responsive streams and show how fairness can be supported by this approach.