support MVC 3D (Multiview Video Coding) for H.264

[philcerf]

Hey.

As far as I ​understood, ffmpeg as of now, does not yet support MVC.

​MVC 3D is an addition to H.264 which allows for 3D movies.
It is also the format that is used by ​BluRay 3D.
As far as I know, there is no corresponding technique for e.g. H.265.

I'm a total noob when it comes to video formats, 3D display devices and the likes. So I have no real idea what "support" from ffmpeg side should even look like.

I guess, that when one has an output device (like a 3D capable projector, a 3D TV screen or glasses/VR-headsets like the "Bigscreen Beyond" or the "XREAL AR glasses") and if that does support MVC itself, then ffmpeg wouldn't need to do much except for passing the stream on as is (and the only thing that would be required was some Linux driver, for the said device.

But it seems that quite some devices do not support MVC directly, but require e.g. SBS (side by side) input.
Right now, many people seem to use ​BD3D2MK3D, but its not open.
So would be nice if any ffmpeg MVC support could be used together with its stereo3d filter to generate e.g. SBS output.

"3D is dead" - so is it even worth it?
Well, there are still many movies released as 3D movies, not only in the cinema but also on home media (i.e. BluRays).
And while 3D TV screens are probably indeed rather dead, there seem to be still quite many 3D projectors and glasses/VR set being released and in development.

I have found ​h264-tools which seems to be able to decode MVC and create SBS versions of it and ​Britz/FFmpeg which seems to have been a master thesis for MVC support in ffmpeg, but I guess got never merged.

Test files:
I'm a bit reluctant of publicly sharing such, as these will be typically very large and copyrighted. But in case someone would indeed want to work on this and doesn't have his own 3D movies, I could privately share some test files.

Thanks,
Philippe

[Elon Musk]

Duplicate of #3009