Quality of experience for 3D video streaming

New 3D video applications and services are emerging to fulfill increasing user demand. This effort is well supported by the increasing 3D video content including user generated content (e.g., through 3D capture/display enabled mobile phones), technological advancements (e.g., HD 3D video capture and processing methods), affordable 3D displays, and standardization activities. However, not much attention has been given to how these technologies, along the end-to-end chain from content capture to display, affect user perception and whether the overall experience of 3D video users is satisfactory or not. 3D video streaming also introduces artifacts on the reconstructed 3D video at the receiver end, leading to inferior quality and user experience. In this article we present and discuss in detail how artifacts introduced during 3D video streaming affect the end-user perception and how we could use realtime quality evaluation methodologies to overcome these effects. The observations presented can underpin the design of future QoE-aware 3D video streaming systems.