gstreamer/docs/design/part-stereo-multiview-video.markdown

Design for Stereoscopic & Multiview Video Handling

There are two cases to handle:

• Encoded video output from a demuxer to parser / decoder or from encoders into a muxer.
• Raw video buffers

The design below is somewhat based on the proposals from bug 611157

Multiview is used as a generic term to refer to handling both stereo content (left and right eye only) as well as extensions for videos containing multiple independent viewpoints.

Encoded Signalling

This is regarding the signalling in caps and buffers from demuxers to parsers (sometimes) or out from encoders.

For backward compatibility with existing codecs many transports of stereoscopic 3D content use normal 2D video with 2 views packed spatially in some way, and put extra new descriptions in the container/mux.

Info in the demuxer seems to apply to stereo encodings only. For all MVC methods I know, the multiview encoding is in the video bitstream itself and therefore already available to decoders. Only stereo systems have been retro-fitted into the demuxer.

Also, sometimes extension descriptions are in the codec (e.g. H.264 SEI FPA packets) and it would be useful to be able to put the info onto caps and buffers from the parser without decoding.

To handle both cases, we need to be able to output the required details on encoded video for decoders to apply onto the raw video buffers they decode.

If there ever is a need to transport multiview info for encoded data the same system below for raw video or some variation should work

Encoded Video: Parameters to transmit in caps

1. multiview-mode (called "Channel Layout" in bug 611157)
   • Whether a stream is mono, for a single eye, stereo, mixed-mono-stereo (switches between mono and stereo - mp4 can do this)
   • Uses a buffer flag to mark individual buffers as mono or "not mono" (single|stereo|multiview) for mixed scenarios. The alternative (not proposed) is for the demuxer to switch caps for each mono to not-mono change, and not used a 'mixed' caps variant at all.
   • single refers to a stream of buffers that only contain 1 view. It is different from mono in that the stream is a marked left or right eye stream for later combining in a mixer or when displaying.
   • multiple marks a stream with multiple independent views encoded. It is included in this list for completeness. As noted above, there's currently no scenario that requires marking encoded buffers as MVC.
2. Frame-packing arrangements / view sequence orderings
   • Possible frame packings: side-by-side, side-by-side-quincunx, column-interleaved, row-interleaved, top-bottom, checker-board
   • bug 611157 - sreerenj added side-by-side-full and top-bottom-full but I think that's covered by suitably adjusting pixel-aspect-ratio. If not, they can be added later.
   • top-bottom, side-by-side, column-interleaved, row-interleaved are as the names suggest.
   • checker-board, samples are left/right pixels in a chess grid +-+-+-/-+-+-+
   • side-by-side-quincunx. Side By Side packing, but quincunx sampling - 1 pixel offset of each eye needs to be accounted when upscaling or displaying
   • there may be other packings (future expansion)
   • Possible view sequence orderings: frame-by-frame, frame-primary-secondary-tracks, sequential-row-interleaved
   • frame-by-frame, each buffer is left, then right view etc
   • frame-primary-secondary-tracks - the file has 2 video tracks (primary and secondary), one is left eye, one is right. Demuxer info indicates which one is which. Handling this means marking each stream as all-left and all-right views, decoding separately, and combining automatically (inserting a mixer/combiner in playbin) -> Leave this for future expansion
   • sequential-row-interleaved Mentioned by sreerenj in bug patches, I can't find a mention of such a thing. Maybe it's in MPEG-2 -> Leave this for future expansion / deletion
3. view encoding order
   • Describes how to decide which piece of each frame corresponds to left or right eye
   • Possible orderings left, right, left-then-right, right-then-left
   • Need to figure out how we find the correct frame in the demuxer to start decoding when seeking in frame-sequential streams
   • Need a buffer flag for marking the first buffer of a group.
4. "Frame layout flags"
   • flags for view specific interpretation
   • horizontal-flip-left, horizontal-flip-right, vertical-flip-left, vertical-flip-right Indicates that one or more views has been encoded in a flipped orientation, usually due to camera with mirror or displays with mirrors.
   • This should be an actual flags field. Registered GLib flags types aren't generally well supported in our caps - the type might not be loaded/registered yet when parsing a caps string, so they can't be used in caps templates in the registry.
   • It might be better just to use a hex value / integer

Buffer representation for raw video

• Transported as normal video buffers with extra metadata
• The caps define the overall buffer width/height, with GstVideoMeta to extract the individual views.
• pixel-aspect-ratio adjusted if needed to double the overall width/height
• video sinks that don't know about multiview extensions yet should show the '0th' GstVideoMeta and therefore the 'primary' view in a backwards compatible way for simple frame-packed transports. For frame-sequence outputs, things might look weird, but just adding multiview-mode to the sink caps can disallow those transports.
• row-interleaved packing is actually just side-by-side memory layout with half frame width, twice the height, so can be handled by adjusting the overall caps and strides
• Other exotic layouts need new pixel formats defined (checker-board, column-interleaved, side-by-side-quincunx)
• Frame-by-frame - one view per buffer, but with alternating metas marking which buffer is which left/right/other view and using a new buffer flag as described above to mark the start of a group of corresponding frames.
• New video caps addition as for encoded buffers

Proposed Caps fields

Combining the requirements above and collapsing the combinations into mnemonics:

• multiview-mode = mono | left | right | sbs | sbs-quin | col | row | topbot | checkers | frame-by-frame | mixed-sbs | mixed-sbs-quin | mixed-col | mixed-row | mixed-topbot | mixed-checkers | mixed-frame-by-frame | multiview-frames mixed-multiview-frames
• multiview-flags =
  • 0x0000 none
  • 0x0001 right-view-first
  • 0x0002 left-h-flipped
  • 0x0004 left-v-flipped
  • 0x0008 right-h-flipped
  • 0x0010 right-v-flipped

Proposed new buffer flags

Add two new GST_VIDEO_BUFFER flags in video-frame.h and make it clear that those flags can apply to encoded video buffers too. wtay says that's currently the case anyway, but the documentation should say it.

GST_VIDEO_BUFFER_FLAG_MULTIPLE_VIEW - Marks a buffer as representing non-mono content, although it may be a single (left or right) eye view. GST_VIDEO_BUFFER_FLAG_FIRST_IN_BUNDLE - for frame-sequential methods of transport, mark the "first" of a left/right/other group of frames

A new GstMultiviewMeta

This provides a place to describe all provided views in a buffer / stream, and through Meta negotiation to inform decoders about which views to decode if not all are wanted.

• Logical labels/names and mapping to GstVideoMeta numbers
• Standard view labels LEFT/RIGHT, and non-standard ones (strings)

Outputting stereo content

The initial implementation for output will be stereo content in glimagesink

Output Considerations with OpenGL

• If we have support for stereo GL buffer formats, we can output separate left/right eye images and let the hardware take care of display.
• Otherwise, glimagesink needs to render one window with left/right in a suitable frame packing and that will only show correctly in fullscreen on a device set for the right 3D packing -> requires app intervention to set the video mode.
• Which could be done manually on the TV, or with HDMI 1.4 by setting the right video mode for the screen to inform the TV or third option, we support rendering to two separate overlay areas on the screen - one for left eye, one for right which can be supported using the 'splitter' element and 2 output sinks or, better, add a 2nd window overlay for split stereo output
• Intel hardware doesn't do stereo GL buffers - only nvidia and AMD, so initial implementation won't include that

Other elements for handling multiview content

• videooverlay interface extensions
  • Element message to communicate the presence of stereoscopic information to the app
  • New API for the app to set rendering options for stereo/multiview content
    • This might be best implemented as a multiview-disposition GstContext, so that the pipeline can share app preferences for (in particular) downmixing to mono for output, or in the sink
• Converter element
  • convert different view layouts
  • Render to anaglyphs of different types (magenta/green, red/blue, etc) and output as mono
• Mixer element
  • take 2 video streams and output as stereo
  • later take n video streams
  • share code with the converter, it just takes input from n pads instead of one.
• Splitter element
  • Output one pad per view

Implementing MVC handling in decoders / parsers (and encoders)

Things to do to implement MVC handling

1. Parsing SEI in h264parse and setting caps (patches available in bugzilla for parsing, see below)
2. Integrate gstreamer-vaapi MVC support with this proposal
3. Help with libav MVC implementation
4. generating SEI in H.264 encoder
5. Support for MPEG2 MVC extensions

Relevant bugs

bug 685215 - codecparser h264: Add initial MVC parser bug 696135 - h264parse: Add mvc stream parsing support bug 732267 - h264parse: extract base stream from MVC or SVC encoded streams