MV-HEVC: How to Optimize Compression of Immersive 3D Content
Multi-view High Efficiency Video Coding (MV-HEVC) is an HEVC extension focused on efficiently coding spatially related images, such as left eye and right eye views of 3D stereoscopic content. MV-HEVC was released in the second version of HEVC back in October 2014.1 MV-HEVC was created alongside another extension named SHVC, which has been employed in ATSC 3.0 use cases since 2018.2 The two extensions share many fundamentals, codified in an annex for common specifications for multilayer extensions. Their base principle is scalability: A traditional HEVC decoder can rely on the base layer only, hence providing backward compatibility; however, a more elaborate decoder can use the second layer as well to improve the rendition. The MV-HEVC format gained widespread attention with Apple's announcement of support for 3D movies on the Apple Vision Pro at WWDC 23.3, 4 Apple provided public guidelines on stereo video encodinq,5 packaging,6 and streaming,7 as well as on providing parallax information to improve caption placement.8 This presentation will describe the MV-HEVC standard and how it works in theory. An implementation of MV-HEVC9 will also be studied to evaluate its performance in practical industrial settings. Deployment aspects such as packaging and captioning will be discussed. Finally, 3D-specific optimization strategies will be analyzed, including software architecture and rate control.
- Print ISSN
- 1545-0279
- Electronic ISSN
- 2160-2492
- Published
- 2025-10
- Content type
- Original Research
- Keywords
- mv-hevc, apple vison pro, 3d stereoscopic video, 3d video transport, 3d video streaming
- DOI
- 10.5594/JMI.2025/SACY7493