Apparatus and Method for Distributing Three Dimensional Media Content

A non-transitory machine-readable storage device, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations comprising:

• receiving image content comprising a first image comprising a first plurality of pixels and a second image comprising a second plurality of pixels, wherein the first image and the second image portray different perspectives of a common scene collectively forming a pair of images of the common scene, and wherein the first plurality of pixels of the first image and the second plurality of pixels of the second image are arranged according to a common coordinate system;
• removing a first portion of pixels the first plurality of pixels from the first image based on a filtering of the first image to obtain a first removed plurality of pixels, resulting in a first remaining portion of pixels;
• removing a second portion of pixels the second plurality of pixels from the second image based on pixels that are correlated with the first remaining portion of pixels, resulting in a second remaining portion of pixels;
• and
• forming a transport frame by combining the first remaining portion of pixels and the second remaining portion of pixels in an interleaving pattern, wherein the transport frame has a lower resolution than either of the first image or the second image and will produce compression gains when encoded.

A method comprising:

• obtaining, by a processing system including a processor, three-dimensional image content comprising a first image comprising a first plurality of pixels and a second image comprising a second plurality of pixels, wherein the first image and the second image are arranged according to a shared coordinate system to portray different perspectives of a common scene and forming a pair of images of the common scene;
• removing, by the processing system, a first portion of pixels of the first plurality of pixels of the first image based on a filtering of the first image to obtain a first removed portion of pixels of the first image, resulting in a first remaining portion of pixels of the first plurality of pixels;
• removing, by the processing system, a second portion of pixels of the second plurality of pixels from the second image based on pixels that are correlated with the first remaining portion of pixels, resulting in a second remaining portion of pixels of the second plurality of pixels;
• and
• forming, by the processing system, a transport frame having a lower resolution than either of the pair of images for delivery to a media processor by combining the first remaining portion of pixels with the second remaining portion of pixels in an interleaving pattern that will produce compression gains when encoded.