Frame compatible format fast encoder with stereo matching

In this paper, a frame compatible format fast encoder with stereo matching is proposed. Through packing the two neighboring views after down-sampling into one frame, the frame compatible format coding allows stereo video to be encoded on the conventional video applications. The matching of content similarity is the key of the fast encoder of Frame Compatible Format (FCF) H.264. Experiments show that the stereo matching can achieve a better result than simply using a shift obtaining method. This paper gives a statistical analysis of the prediction correlation between the two packed views in FCF by using different method to prove that the system can obtain much better results with stereo matching method. A modified fast stereo matching algorithm which is suitable for FCF fast encoding is introduced. Finally, the process and simulated results of stereo matching combined frame compatible format fast encoder is shown. Through the experimental result, the proposed algorithm can obtain a better result than the previous work. It can achieve better video quality, less PSNR lost and the lower bit rate increment.