Low bitrate video coding with depth compensation

A depth-compensated low bitrate hybrid video coder for videophone applications is described. Depth and associated position information is extracted from the video frames using an edge-based stereo algorithm. A global motion vector and scale factor are extracted from the depth map and used as parameters for a model of the moving object. These global parameters are used to make the motion-compensated prediction more effective, by compensating for the change in size of the object. Simulations show that the compensated coder results in coded sequences with SNRs up to 1 dB better than those coded with conventional hybrid coders, at a coding rate of 64 kbit/s