Novel tile segmentation scheme for omnidirectional video

TL;DR

This paper introduces a tile-based segmentation scheme for omnidirectional video that significantly reduces pixel waste and bitrate compared to traditional map projection methods.

Contribution

The proposed scheme improves omnidirectional video encoding efficiency by reducing pixel area and bitrate without sacrificing quality.

Findings

Up to 28% reduction in pixel area

Up to 20% BD-rate savings

More efficient than traditional equirectangular projection

Abstract

Regular omnidirectional video encoding technics use map projection to flatten a scene from a spherical shape into one or several 2D shapes. Common projection methods including equirectangular and cubic projection have varying levels of interpolation that create a large number of non-information-carrying pixels that lead to wasted bitrate. In this paper, we propose a tile based omnidirectional video segmentation scheme which can save up to 28% of pixel area and 20% of BD-rate averagely compared to the traditional equirectangular projection based approach.