A system and method for implementing low complexity multi-view video coding. According to various embodiments, single-loop decoding is applied to multi-view video coding. For N coded views, where only M of the N views are to be displayed, only those M views are required to be fully decoded and stored to a decoded picture buffer (DPB) when needed. Pictures of other views are only partially decoded or simply parsed and do not have to be stored into the DPB. Various embodiments also provide for an encoder that encodes multi-view video bitstreams in accordance with the single-loop decoding concept, as well as a decoder that utilizes single-loop decoding to decode and output on a subset of the encoded views from a multi-view bitstream.