Patent ID: 7561620

Claim:
A computer-implemented process for compressing video data comprising sequential sets of contemporaneous video frames wherein the video frames in a set depict substantially the same scene from different viewpoints, and each frame of which is represented by at least a main layer and a boundary layer, said process comprising: using a computer to perform the following process actions: designating one or more keyframes for each set of contemporaneous frames such that each designated keyframe in any one set of contemporaneous frames has a viewpoint that is the same as a designated keyframe in all the other sets of contemporaneous frames; and for each set of contemporaneous video frames in time sequence order, compressing the main layer of each keyframe using an inter-frame compression technique; compressing the main layer of each non-keyframe using a spatial prediction compression technique; and compressing the boundary layer of each frame using an intra-frame compression technique; and storing or transmitting the compressed main layer of each keyframe, compressed main layer of each non-keyframe, and compressed boundary layer of each frame.