Method and system for a user to manually alter the quality of a previously encoded video sequence

A method of controlling quality of digitally encoded video, comprising the steps of:

• encoding video into a digitally compressed format;
• inputting commands by a user indicating qualities of time periods of the encoded video are to be changed;
• determining numbers of bits for said time periods using the inputted commands by reducing a number of bits in at least one of said time periods and increasing a number of bits in another of said time periods;
• and
• re-encoding said time periods of the video using the determined number of bits.

A method of determining if a re-encoded video of a time period of a video will result in a video buffer underflow condition for video subsequent to the time period, comprising the steps of:

• determining a buffer occupancy corresponding to a video frame of original encoded video;
• determining a buffer occupancy corresponding to said video frame of re-encoded video, said video frame of the re-encoded video being a last frame of the re-encoded video;
• determining a minimum allowable video buffer occupancy of said video frame of the re-encoded video so that the video buffer underflow condition will not occur for video frames subsequent to said video frame;
• and
• reducing a number of bits of ending frames of said re-encoded video so that said video frame of the re-encoded video will have at least the minimum allowable buffer occupancy.

A system for controlling quality of digitally encoded video, comprising:

• means for encoding video into a digitally compressed format;
• means for inputting commands by a user indicating qualities of time periods of the encoded video are to be changed;
• means for determining numbers of bits for said time periods using the inputted commands indicating quality and a number of bits of frames of the video encoded in the digitally compressed format;
• and
• means for re-encoding at least two of said time periods of the video into the digitally compressed format using the determined numbers of bits for said at least two of said time periods.

A system for controlling quality of digitally encoded video, comprising:

• means for encoding video into a digitally compressed format;
• means for inputting commands by a user indicating qualities of time periods of the encoded video are to be changed;
• means for determining numbers of bits for said time periods using the inputted commands by reducing a number of bits in at least one of said time periods and increasing a number of bits in another of said time periods;
• means for re-encoding said time periods of the video using the determined number of bits.

A system for determining if re-encoded video of a time period of a video will result in a video buffer underflow condition for video subsequent to the time period, comprising:

• means for determining a buffer occupancy corresponding to a video frame of original encoded video;
• means for determining a buffer occupancy corresponding to said video frame of re-encoded video, said video frame of the re-encoded video being a last frame of the re-encoded video;
• means for determining a minimum allowable video buffer occupancy of said video frame of the re-encoded video so that the video buffer underflow condition will not occur for video frames subsequent to said video frame;
• and
• means for reducing a number of bits of ending frames of said re-encoded video so that said video frame of the re-encoded video will have at least the minimum allowable buffer occupancy.

A system for encoding video, comprising:

• a video source;
• a video encoder connected to the video source;
• an intermediate storage device, connected to the video encoder;
• a user input device;
• a display;
• a controller, connected to the user input device, the display, and the video encoder, which commands the video encoder to perform a first encoding of video from the video source and store the first encoding in the intermediate storage device, and commands the video encoder to re-encode sections of the video to have quality based on quality selections input by the user input device.

A method for controlling quality of digitally encoded video, comprising the steps of:

• encoding video into a digitally compressed form;
• inputting commands by a user indicating qualities of time periods of the encoded video are to be changed;
• creating a pool of bits by removing bits from the encoded video;
• and
• redistributing the pool of bits in accordance with the commands indicating qualities of the time periods.

A system for controlling quality of digitally encoded video, comprising:

• means for encoding video into a digitally compressed form;
• means for inputting commands by a user indicating qualities of time periods of the encoded video are to be changed;
• means for creating a pool of bits by removing bits from the encoded video;
• and
• means for redistributing the pool of bits in accordance with the commands indicating qualities of the time periods.