Described herein is a MPEG-2 compatible stereoscopic 3D-video image digital decoding method and system. In order to obtain 3D-images from a digital video stream, modifications are made to the current MPEG2 decoders, by means of software and hardware changes in different parts of the decoding process. Namely, the video_sequence structures of the video data stream are modified via software to include the necessary flags at the bit level of the image type in the TDVision® technology. Modifications are also made in the decoding processes as well as in decoding the information via software and hardware, wherein a double output buffer is activated, a parallel and difference decoding selector is activated, the decompression process is executed, the corresponding output buffer is displayed; and the decoder is programmed via software to simultaneously receive and decode two independent program streams, each with an TDVision® stereoscopic identifier.