A YCbCr Color Depth Packing Method and its Extension for 3D Video Broadcasting Services

Abstract

To deliver three-dimension (3D) video services through the current two-dimension (2D) broadcasting systems, the frame compatible packing formats of views with depth maps will be an effective approach. With texture and depth information, the 3D videos with a depth image-based rendering engine can easily support all glasses and glasses-free 3D displays. In this paper, we propose a new YCbCr color depth packing method based on the centralized texture-depth packing (CTDP) formats to deliver effective 3D video services. Simulations show that the CTDP formats with YCbCr color depth packing method can achieve better objective and subjective texture and depth quality than the 2D-plus-depth packing (2DDP) formats. The benefits from using CTDP include light complexity and maturity and wide application of existing video codec. The packing scheme is compatible with any video codecs. Before the 3D-HEVC-based video broadcasting system, the proposed CTDP formats with YCbCr color depth packing method could help to deliver 3D videos in the current 2D broadcasting systems simply and efficiently.