A Stereoscopic 3-D Broadcasting System Using Fixed and Mobile Hybrid Delivery and the Quality Assessment of the Mixed Resolution Stereoscopic Video

In this paper, we demonstrate the structure and characteristics of the bandwidth-efficient stereoscopic 3-D broadcasting system entitled service compatible 3-D-TV using main and mobile hybrid delivery (SC-MMH), which enables the broadcasters to provide three different types of services (2-D fixed, mobile, and 3-D) by transmitting only the two legacy broadcast streams (2-D fixed and mobile). By combining the two existing broadcast networks, the proposed system provides high quality 3-D services, fully guarantees backward-compatibility with the legacy fixed/mobile 2-D receivers, and maximizes the channel efficiency. One major feature of the proposed system is bit-rate saving based on the video resolution asymmetry between the left and right eye views, also referred to as “mixed-resolution.” Although it is well-known wisdom that the mixed-resolution stereoscopic videos are perceived close to the higher resolution based on the binocular rivalry suppression theory, the perceived quality also depends on the factors such as scale ratio, viewing distance, bit-rate distribution, and types of codecs. Therefore, we conducted the objective and subjective tests to measure the service quality of the proposed system and find the optimum bit-rate distribution points, and with the results, we demonstrate that SC-MMH can provide the satisfactory quality when the proper level of bit-rate is allocated to the mobile service.