MVC in H.264

[mbcd]

I didnt understand very much of this stuff, but I read that it is possible to embed 3D-Data inside a normal AVC-Stream, so that it gets an MVC.

My questions are now:

1. Is this a simple "muxing" of both data (e.g. if you have ssif from bluray)

2. Is there actually a program that can extract both streams (eac3to doesnt recognize the MVC/3D-Data) if you have such single MVC-Videofile.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Stereoscopic (3D) video is not stored as two independent video streams "muxed" into a single file. This would be much too inefficient.

Instead the left and the right view's are "packed" into a single "2D" video stream, e.g. as side by side or frame alternation. This way similarities between the two views can be leveraged for compression.

AFAIK, this is not fundamentally different between AVC and MVC. And yes, 3D data can be stored in "normal" AVC just fine (e.g. by using the x264 encoder). You don't need MVC for that!

The AVC standard even defines a special SEI message for 3D video, so the "frame packing" mode can be indicated to the player. x264 will insert that SEI message, if you set "--frame-packing" properly.

(Note that 3D video stored in AVC does not become MVC. In order to create MVC, you would need a "true" MVC encoder. But as said before, you don't need MVC - except for authoring 3D BluRay's).

[nevcairiel]

Technically, at least in Blu-ray MPEG-TS, there are two streams, the AVC base view (a normal AVC stream), and the MVC stream.
You can decode the AVC stream without the MVC stream, but you cannot decode the MVC stream without the AVC. So while there are two streams, at least the MVC stream depends on the AVC stream, and can therefor leverage all the advantages to keep redudant data to a minimum.

Like LoRd_MuldeR said, MVC is however not the only way to produce a 3D file with AVC. x264 offers options to do it in one "normal" AVC stream.