Provided is a method and apparatus for generating a multi-view image data stream, the method including: recording multi-view image data onto the multi-view image data stream; recording onto the multi-view image data stream a multi-view image parameter recording parameter indicating whether a multi-view image parameter with regard to the multi-view image data is to be recorded onto the multi-view image data stream; and determining whether the multi-view image parameter is to be recorded onto the multi-view image data stream based on a value of the multi-view image data parameter recording parameter.