A system comprising: a processor; a user interface coupled to the processor, the user interface comprising an image capture device; and memory coupled to the processor and storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform operations comprising: capturing video data using the image capture device; encoding the captured video data to generate encoded video data, the encoded video data; determining a complexity within a field of view of the image capture device based on a comparison between at least a portion of the captured video data and at least a portion of the encoded video data, the comparison being implemented by determining an average difference between a plurality of frames in the captured video data and a plurality of frames in the encoded video data, the frames of the encoded video data being decoded to corresponding pixel frames; selecting, based on the determined complexity, a bitrate to be applied to the encoded video, wherein the selecting of the bitrate is based on predefined mappings between video quality metrics and a transcoding configuration, wherein the predefined mappings are stored within a database and are accessible via the database; and transcoding the encoded video according to a predetermined transcoding profile so as to generate the transcoded video at the selected bitrate. a processor; a user interface coupled to the processor, the user interface comprising an image capture device; and memory coupled to the processor and storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform operations comprising: capturing video data using the image capture device; encoding the captured video data to generate encoded video data, the encoded video data; determining a complexity within a field of view of the image capture device based on a comparison between at least a portion of the captured video data and at least a portion of the encoded video data, the comparison being implemented by determining an average difference between a plurality of frames in the captured video data and a plurality of frames in the encoded video data, the frames of the encoded video data being decoded to corresponding pixel frames; selecting, based on the determined complexity, a bitrate to be applied to the encoded video, wherein the selecting of the bitrate is based on predefined mappings between video quality metrics and a transcoding configuration, wherein the predefined mappings are stored within a database and are accessible via the database; and transcoding the encoded video according to a predetermined transcoding profile so as to generate the transcoded video at the selected bitrate. capturing video data using the image capture device; encoding the captured video data to generate encoded video data, the encoded video data; determining a complexity within a field of view of the image capture device based on a comparison between at least a portion of the captured video data and at least a portion of the encoded video data, the comparison being implemented by determining an average difference between a plurality of frames in the captured video data and a plurality of frames in the encoded video data, the frames of the encoded video data being decoded to corresponding pixel frames; selecting, based on the determined complexity, a bitrate to be applied to the encoded video, wherein the selecting of the bitrate is based on predefined mappings between video quality metrics and a transcoding configuration, wherein the predefined mappings are stored within a database and are accessible via the database; and transcoding the encoded video according to a predetermined transcoding profile so as to generate the transcoded video at the selected bitrate.