Method for generating video- and audience-specific encoding ladders

A method for generating an encoding ladder comprising:

• extracting a set of video features representing properties of a video segment based on a sequence of frames;
• generating a set of bitrate-resolution pairs based on the set of video features, each bitrate-resolution pair in the set of bitrate-resolution pairs comprising:
• a bitrate;
• and
• a resolution predicted to yield a quality score exceeding a threshold quality score, the quality score characterizing the video segment encoded at the bitrate and the resolution;
• accessing a distribution of audience bandwidths representative of a predicted viewer population of the video segment;
• selecting a subset of bitrate-resolution pairs in the set of bitrate-resolution pairs based on the distribution of audience bandwidths;
• and
• generating an encoding ladder for the video segment comprising the subset of bitrate-resolution pairs.

A method for generating an encoding ladder comprising:

• extracting a set of video features representing properties of a video segment based on a sequence of frames:
• generating a set of bitrate-resolution pairs based on the set of video features;
• accessing a distribution of audience bandwidths representative of a predicted viewer population of the video segment;
• selecting a subset of bitrate-resolution pairs predicted to yield an aggregate quality score of the video segment, the aggregate quality score exceeding a threshold aggregate quality score;
• and
• generating an encoding ladder for the video segment comprising the subset of bitrate-resolution pairs.