Parallel Encoding - Decoding Operation for Multiview Video Coding with High Coding Efficiency

Multiview Video Coding (MVC) standardization is an ongoing effort aiming to extend H.264/AVC by developing novel tools optimized for 3D and multiview video use cases. One of the key identified requirements for the MVC standard is its ability to support parallel processing of different views. The parallel operation is known to be especially important for 3DTV applications, where the display needs to output many views simultaneously to support head-motion parallax. In this paper, we present a novel coding structure that enables parallel encoder/decoder operation for different views, without compromising from the coding efficiency. This is achieved by systematically restricting the reference area of each view, so that encoding and decoding of macroblocks from different views could be efficiently pipelined and parallel operation of separate views becomes possible. As the inter-view prediction is still used, proposed structure achieves up to 0.9 dB gain compared to simulcast, maintaining very similar desirable parallelism characteristics.