Use of objective quality measures of streamed content to reduce streaming bandwidth

A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program, including instructions to cause a processor to:

• encode video at a first bitrate to produce first encoded sections;
• encode the video at a second bitrate that is less than the first bitrate to produce second encoded sections, each having encoded therein the video of a corresponding one of the first encoded sections;
• measure objective quality levels, indicative of perceptual quality levels, of the first and second encoded sections;
• determine, based on the measured objective quality levels, replaceable sections among the first encoded sections, and replacement sections among the second encoded sections, each to replace a corresponding one of the replaceable sections;
• generate identifying information that identifies the replaceable sections and their corresponding replacement sections in the first and second container files, respectively, using the encoding system;
• stream the identifying information;
• and
• in response to requests from a playback device that are dependent on the streamed identifying information, stream the first encoded sections except for the replaceable sections, and stream the replacement sections instead of their corresponding replaceable sections at a same time as the corresponding replaceable section would have been streamed had the corresponding replaceable section not been replaced.

An apparatus, comprising:

• a processor and memory configured to:
• encode video at a first bitrate to produce first encoded sections, and
• encode the video at a second bitrate that is less than the first bitrate to produce second encoded sections, each having encoded therein the video of a corresponding one of the first encoded sections;
• measure objective quality levels, indicative of perceptual quality levels, of the first and second encoded sections;
• determine, based on the measured objective quality levels, replaceable sections among the first encoded sections, and replacement sections among the second encoded sections, each to replace a corresponding one of the replaceable sections;
• and
• generate identifying information that identifies the replaceable sections and their corresponding replacement sections in the first and second container files, respectively, using the encoding system;
• stream the identifying information;
• and
• in response to requests from a playback device that are dependent on the streamed identifying information stream the first encoded sections except for the replaceable sections, and the replacement sections instead of their corresponding replaceable sections at a same time as the corresponding replaceable section would have been streamed had the corresponding replaceable section not been replaced.