Patent ID: 8978090
Filing Date: 2015-03-10
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus, operable in a wireless communication system, comprising: a customer manager to determine a first user preference for selective re-encoding of a multimedia stream for a first user and a second user preference for selective re-encoding of the multimedia stream for a second user; an encode manager included within wireless service provider equipment of the wireless communication system that receives the multimedia stream and selects at least one of a plurality of encoding parameter sets for each of the first and second user preferences in accordance with an encoding scheme, wherein the encoding scheme includes a first scheme based on the first user preference and a second scheme based on the second user preference, wherein the multimedia stream includes a plurality of different types of data, wherein the plurality of encoding parameter sets include a first encoding parameter set for encoding only a first type of the plurality of types of data, a second encoding parameter set for encoding only a second type of the plurality of types of data different from the first type, a third encoding parameter set for encoding only a third type of the plurality of types of data different from the first and second types and a fourth encoding parameter set for encoding multiple types of the plurality of types of data, and wherein the first user preference and the second user preference each indicates which of the first, second, third and fourth encoding parameter sets to use when encoding the multimedia stream; and an encoder system included within the wireless service provider equipment for selectively re-encoding the received stream using the selected one of the plurality of encoding parameter sets to output an encoded stream with principles set fourth by the selected one of the plurality of encoding parameter sets, wherein the first user preference specifies a first demand to provide the multimedia stream at a lower quality of service and a lowest billing rate, and the second user preference specifies a second demand to provide the multimedia stream at a higher quality of service and a higher billing rate relative to the first demand, and wherein in response to the first user preference, the encode manager selects one of the plurality of encoding parameter sets that provides a high rate of compression and the lower quality of service at the lowest billing rate, and in response to the second preference, the encoder manager selects one of the plurality of encoding parameter sets that provides the higher quality of service at the higher billing rate.