Multi view Video Coding (MVC, also known as MVC 3D) is a 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 2D Plus Delta (also 2D+Delta) is a method of encoding 3D image listed as a part of MPEG2 and MPEG4 standards, specifically on the H.264 implementation of the Multiview Video Coding extension. This technology originally started as a proprietary m ...

method and is an amendment to the H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) video compression standard, developed jointly by

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and fi ...

and

VCEG The Video Coding Experts Group or Visual Coding Experts Group (VCEG, also known as Question 6) is a working group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with standards for compression coding of video, images, audio ...

, with contributions from a number of companies, primarily

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

and

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest ''chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered ...

. MVC formatting is intended for encoding

stereoscopic Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...

(two-view)

3D video 3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. They have existed in some form since 1915, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion pict ...

, as well as free viewpoint television and multi-view

3D television 3D television (3DTV) is television that conveys depth perception to the viewer by employing techniques such as stereoscopic display, multi-view display, 2D-plus-depth, or any other form of 3D display. Most modern 3D television sets use an a ...

. The Stereo High profile has been standardized in June 2009; the profile is based on the MVC tool set and is used in stereoscopic Blu-ray 3D releases.

Technical overview

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 An elementary stream (ES) as defined by the MPEG communication protocol is usually the output of an audio encoder or video encoder. An ES contains only one kind of data (e.g. audio, video, or closed caption). An elementary stream is often referred ...

and to share as much information as possible across the different layers. This can reduce the 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

algorithm, and the MVC specification itself is part of the H.264 standard as an amendment in H.264 “Annex H” of the specification.

Open source support mostly missing

As of April 2015, there is still no

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

that supports software decoding of the MVC video compression standard. So popular open source H.264 and HEVC (H.265) decoders such as those used in the

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of ...

and

Libav Libav is an abandoned free software project, forked from FFmpeg in 2011, that contains libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. History Fork from FFmpeg The Libav project was a fork of the FFmpeg project. It was announced ...

libraries simply ignore the additional information for the second view and thus do not show the second view for stereoscopic views. In most cases the reason for this support not being added is that MVC was not considered when the initial core H.264 and HEVC decoders code was written so it was coded in one large chunk, and later amendment would as such often mean a lot of prerequisite

code refactoring In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structu ...

work and large changes its current architecture, with major work in untangling and reordering some code, and splitting different functions in existing decoder code into smaller chunks for simpler handling to in turn then make amendments such as MVC easier to add. Some

proof-of-concept Proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle with the aim of verifying that some concept or theory has prac ...

work has however been done downstream in the past, but never made it upstream into official releases of

. On March 8, 2016, the situation improved. Version 0.68 of the DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders Collection LAV Filters was released by developer "Nevcairiel" (who also works for Media Player Classic — Home Cinema ( MPC-HC)) with support of H.264 MVC 3D demuxing and decoding. With the aid of this release and FRIM written by a programmer named “videohelp3d” it is possible to write an

AviSynth AviSynth is a frameserver program for Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS initially developed by Ben Rudiak-Gould, Edwin van Eggelen, Klaus Post, Richard Berg and Ian Brabham in May 2000 and later picked up and maintained by the open source commu ...

script to pre process a H.264 MVC 3D video clip which can then be opened by free 3D video player Bino and then shown as red — cyan anaglyph video for example. The usage of the FRIM AviSynth plugin (FRIMSource) is described on “videohelp3d” home page. LAV Filters can be used to get audio from H.264 MVC 3D video clip. The developer posted that in a future release of, it might be possible that LAV Video renders the video as Side-by-Side directly.

Patent holders

The following organizations hold

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...

s that contributed to the development of MVC technology, listed in a

patent pool In patent law, a patent pool is a consortium of at least two companies agreeing to cross-license patents relating to a particular technology. The creation of a patent pool can save patentees and licensees time and money, and, in case of blocking ...

MPEG LA MPEG LA is an American company based in Denver, Colorado that licenses patent pools covering essential patents required for use of the MPEG-2, MPEG-4, IEEE 1394, VC-1, ATSC, MVC, MPEG-2 Systems, AVC/H.264 and HEVC standards. History MPEG LA ...

References

External links

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories – Multiview Video Coding project

MPEG – Technologies – Introduction to Multiview Video Coding

Nokia Research Center – Mobile 3D Video project and MVC source code

NetBlender – MVC encoding solution for 3D Blu-ray authoring
*TDVision Systems, Inc – Stereoscopic decoding patents: *
TDVision Systems, Inc – Stereoscopic encoding patent
*
TDVision Systems, Inc – Stereoscopic decoding patent
{{High-definition 3D imaging IEC standards ISO standards MPEG-4 Open standards covered by patents Video codecs Video compression

Technical overview

Open source support mostly missing

Patent holders

See also

References

External links