Multiview Video Coding

Multiview Video Coding (MVC, also known as MVC 3D) is an stereoscopic video coding standard for video compression that allows for the efficient encoding of video sequences captured simultaneously from multiple camera angles in a single video stream. It uses the 2D plus Delta method and is an amendment to the H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) video compression standard, developed jointly by MPEG and VCEG.

MVC formatting is intended for encoding stereoscopic (two-view) 3D video, as well as free viewpoint television and multi-view 3D television. The Stereo High profile has been standardized in June 2009; the profile is based on the MVC toolset and is used in stereoscopic Blu-ray 3D releases.

MVC streams are backward compatible with H.264/AVC, which allows older video player devices and software decoders to decode MVC video streams while ignoring additional information for the second view, meaning that the stereoscopic image will not be available.

MVC is based on the idea that video recordings of the same scene from multiple angles share many common elements. It is possible to encode all simultaneous frames captured in the same elementary stream and to share as much information as possible across the different layers. This can reduce size of the encoded video.

Multiview video contains a large amount of inter-view statistical dependencies, since all cameras capture the same scene from different viewpoints. Therefore, combined temporal and inter-view prediction is important for efficient MVC encoding. A frame from a certain camera can be predicted not only from temporally related frames from the same camera, but also from the frames of neighboring cameras. These interdependencies can be used for efficient prediction.

The method for this used in Multiview Video Coding for Blu-ray 3D movies is known as the 2D plus Delta algorithm, and the MVC specification itself is part of the H.264 standard as an amendment in H.264 "Annex H" of the specification.

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