An Assigned Color Depth Packing Method With Centralized Texture Depth Packing Formats for 3D VR Broadcasting Services

The ability to distribute 3D video and audio in traditional television channels is key to deliver three dimensional (3D) virtual reality (VR) broadcasting services, which allows a limited number of connected players and unlimited number of audiences to enjoy 3D video, audio, and passive interactions. Recently, the centralized texture depth packing (CTDP) formats with color depth packing are proposed for delivering 3D videos. In this paper, we revise the procedure of CTDP computation and introduce an assigned color depth packing method that packs the depth information of VR in RGB color space and depacks it in YCbCr or RGB color space even if the video coder is conducted in YCbCr 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 chroma formats. Under uncoded and coded conditions, the performances of the depacked depth, texture, and synthesized frames of the proposed method are compared to those of the existed packing algorithms. Finally, a trial 3D video and VR broadcasting system based on the left-ad-right CTDP format have been tested in Hsin Yeong, a cable company in Taiwan.