Smart 3D video coding

In this paper we explore a method to encode/decode multiview textures and associated supplementary data (depth map as an example) together in a single bitstream. Least significant bit (LSB) of last two levels in each transform block has been modified according to the depth encoded bits, thus resulting in very minimal loss in PSNR of textures (0.1 - 0.5dB) with overall bitrate gain of about 13% for natural scenes. The remaining encoded information have been inserted after the slice NAL of corresponding texture ensuring backward compatibility and correct extraction and decoding by a modified decoder. Benchmarking results in terms of compression efficiency and quality on HD sequences have been reported to explore further the viability of using this technique for Free Viewpoint Video (FVV) or 3DV use cases. Experiments are also carried out to evaluate subjective quality of the synthesized views.