Offloading video coding processes to hardware for better density-quality tradeoffs

An apparatus, comprising:

• a memory to store instructions;
• and
• one or more processors to execute the instructions, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
• determine a target video quality and a target latency for an input video;
• command a hardware encode module to encode the input video, in response to determining that the target video quality is met by a quality metric attainable by the hardware encode module and the target latency is met by a latency attainable by the hardware encode module;
• determine that multiple passes are needed to meet a further target video quality;
• command the hardware encode module to perform a first encode pass of the multiple passes;
• and
• command software to perform a final encode pass of the multiple passes.