Patent ID: 7876821

Claim:
A method for controlling the encoding rate of an encoder for encoding a video sequence, wherein the video sequence comprises a plurality of Group Of Pictures, wherein each Group of Picture comprises at least an I-frame and an Inter-frame, the method comprising the following for the encoding of each Inter-frame in the Group of Picture: Determining a desired frame rate based on an available bandwidth of a channel which is used for transmitting the video sequence and on available computational resources for the encoding process; Determining a target buffer level based on the desired frame rate and the position of the Inter-frame with respect to the I-frame; Determining a target bit rate based on the target buffer level and the available channel bandwidth, wherein the target bit rate is used for controlling the rate for encoding the video sequence; Determining a target encoding time interval for the Inter-frame that is determined based on the available channel bandwidth and an average encoding time interval used for encoding the Inter-frame, wherein the average encoding time interval for the Inter-frame is proportional to the available computational resources for the encoding process; and Determining the desired frame rate based on the determined target encoding time interval.