Multiview-video-plus-depth coding and inter-component prediction in high-level-syntax extension of H.265/HEVC

The multiview-video-plus-depth (MVD) format has become popular in representing 3D video content in a manner that enables free-viewpoint capability in the decoder side. The scalable (SHVC) and multiview (MV-HEVC) extensions of the High Efficiency Video Coding standard (H.265/HEVC) enable their functionality without additional coding tools and use the same high level syntax. In this paper, it is proposed to use the same coding approach as taken in SHVC and MV-HEVC for coding of MVD data. Furthermore, an inter-component motion vector prediction (ICP) method, which is realized through the temporal motion vector prediction (TMVP) mechanism of H.265/HEVC, is introduced to exploit the redundancy between texture and depth views. The experimental results show that 1.0% and 3.6% bitrate reduction can be achieved by ICP compared to independent coding of texture and depth for synthesized views and depth views, respectively, when the ICP method is applied to a 3-view coding scenario intended for multi-view autostereoscopic displays.