Stereoscopic video coding and disparity estimation for low bitrate applications based on MPEG-4 multiple auxiliary components

Using an MPEG-4 MAC (multiple auxiliary component) system is a good way to encode stereoscopic video with existing standard CODECs, especially when it comes to low bitrate applications. In this paper, we discuss the properties and problems of MAC systems when encoding stereoscopic video, and propose an MAC-based stereoscopic video coder and disparity estimation scheme to solve those problems. We used a reconstructed disparity map during the disparity compensation process and took that disparity map into account while estimating the base-view sequence motion vectors. Moreover, we proposed a search range finding and illumination imbalance decision system. We also proposed a block-based disparity map regularization process as well as block splitting in the object boundary and occlusion regions (to reduce the number of bits to encode in both the disparity map and the residual image). Last, we compensated for the imbalance between two cameras with a novel system that used MAC characteristics. Experimental results indicate that the proposed MAC system outperformed conventional stereo coding systems by a maximum of 3.5 dB in terms of the PSNR and 10–18% in terms of bitsaving, especially in low bitrate applications.