Patent ID: 7346106

Claim:
A method for robust multi-pass variable bit rate video encoding, the method comprising: an encoding manager performing a first-pass encoding of a video sequence; the encoding manager collecting data concerning the video sequence during the first-pass encoding; the encoding manager utilizing collected data to construct a data analysis model concerning the video sequence, the data analysis model comprising at least a frame model concerning each frame of the video sequence, and a sequence model concerning the video sequence as a whole; the encoding manager utilizing the data analysis model to distinguish between easy and hard segments of the video sequence to determine segment complexity of each segment and to generate a variable bit rate profile for the video sequence, the variable bit rate profile complying with a bit budget for the video sequence, avoiding buffer underflow for each frame of the video sequence, and variably allocating bits to segments as a function of segment complexity; and the encoding manager utilizing the variable bit rate profile to perform a second-pass encoding of the video sequence.