An apparatus comprising a plurality of ports, and a processor coupled to the ports and configured to receive a plurality of video frames from any of the ports, wherein the video frames comprise an object and a background, and wherein the video frames comprise a plurality of color pixels for the object and the background, receive a plurality of depth frames from any of the ports, wherein the depth frames comprise the object and the background, and wherein the depth frames comprise an indication of an object depth relative to a background depth, and encode the video frames using the indication of the object depth relative to the background depth.