Low-complexity multiview video coding

We consider the problem of complexity reduction in Multiview Video Coding (MVC). We provide a unique comprehensive study that integrates and compares the different low complexity encoding techniques that have been proposed at different levels of the MVC system. In addition, we propose a novel complexity reduction method that takes advantage of the relationship between disparity vectors along time. The relationship is exploited with respect to the motion activity in the frame, as well as with the position of the frame in the Group of Pictures. We integrate this technique into our unique comprehensive framework and evaluate the performance of the resulting system in different setups. We show that the effective combination of complexity reduction techniques results in saving up to 93% in encoding time at the cost of only 0.08 dB in peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and 1.64% increase in bitrate compared to the standard MVC implementation (JMVM 6.0).