Multiview Video Plus Depth Coding With Depth-Based Prediction Mode

In this paper, we propose a novel multiview video plus depth (MVD) codec that uses a depth-based prediction mode (DBPM) both for texture videos and the depth maps. We show that the proposed codec can provide up to 9.2%, 9.9%, and 6.7% bitrate savings over H.264/MVC (MVC) for coding MVD data, depth maps, and multiview videos, respectively. In addition, we present subjective test results that compare the perceptual video quality of stereo videos coded with the DBPM-enabled codec and MVC. We also show that a typical Lagrangian rate-distortion optimization is effective to successfully choose between the prediction modes available to the proposed encoder. We provide a complexity analysis for the proposed codec as well and show that the encoder complexity is comparable to MVC, while the decoder complexity is about twice of MVC. Finally, we analyze the effects of different encoder control parameters on the virtual view synthesis quality. Results show that video QP has the most influence on the synthesis quality, and there is a tradeoff between the depth map QP and resolution. Lower depth map resolutions yield more bitrate savings, whereas for similar bitrates higher resolution and higher QP depth maps achieve better view synthesis performance.