Versatile Input View Selection for Efficient Immersive Video Transmission

In this paper we deal with the problem of the optimal selection of input views, which are transmitted within an immersive video bitstream. Due to limited bitrate and pixel rate, only a subset of input views available on the encoder side can be fully transmitted to the decoder. Remaining views are – in the simplest approach – omitted or – in the newest immersive video encoding standard (MPEG immersive video, MIV) – pruned in order to remove less important information. Selecting proper views for transmission is crucial in terms of the quality of immersive video system user’s experience. In the paper we have analyzed which input views have to be selected for providing the best possible quality of virtual views, independently on the viewport requested by the viewer. Moreover, we have proposed an algorithm, which takes into account a non-uniform probability of user’s viewing direction, allowing for the increase of the subjective quality of virtual navigation for omnidirectional content.