MVC based scalable codec enhancing frame-compatible stereoscopic video

Existing 3D video solutions take advantages of the 2D video infrastructure, by coding two views of the stereoscopic video content in a frame-compatible manner, such as side-by-side or top-bottom. Content providers and service providers are using the existing 2D video authorizing tools and delivery infrastructure to enhance the 2D video experience into 3D with relatively small additional cost. However, such a frame-compatible solution typically sacrifices the quality of each view, by providing a half-resolution representation. In the future, it is expected that more and more devices are capable of rendering full-resolution 1080p stereoscopic video content. Co-existing of services based on half-resolution stereoscopic video, full-resolution stereoscopic video, as well as full-resolution 2D video is expected in the marketplace. In this paper, a scalable codec is proposed to support the decoding and rendering of frame-compatible stereo, full-resolution 2D and full-resolution stereo video representations. Compared to codecs providing similar functionalities, significant coding gain can be achieved.