Prioritizing encoding of video data received by an online system to maximize visual quality while accounting for fixed computing capacity

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• maintain, at an online system, a set of codecs for encoding video data;
• obtain, at the online system, video data items from users of the online system;
• for each combination of video data item obtained by the online system and codec of the set:
• determine a benefit to the online system of encoding a video data item with a codec of the set, the benefit to the online system based on (1) a compression efficiency of the codec and (2) a predicted aggregate amount of time users of the online system will watch the video data item during a specific time interval;
• determine a computational cost to the online system of encoding the video data item with the codec of the set;
• and
• determine a ratio of the benefit to the online system of encoding the video data item with the codec of the set to the computational cost to the online system of encoding the video data item with the codec of the set;
• generate a ranking of combinations of video data items and codecs of the set based on the determined ratios;
• and
• encode, by the online system, video data items with corresponding codecs from combinations of video data items and codecs in an order specified by the ranking.