Patent ID: 7898951

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a processing device configured to: encode a first scalable media bit stream more than once, each such encoding using distinct encoding parameters, to generate a plurality of encoded instances of the first scalable media bit stream, the first stream encoded instances having different bit rates; encode a second scalable media bit stream more than once, each such encoding using distinct encoding parameters, to generate a plurality of encoded instances of the second scalable media bit stream, the second stream encoded instances having different bit rates; encode a third scalable media bit stream more than once, each such encoding using distinct encoding parameters, to generate a plurality of encoded instances of the third scalable media bit stream, the third stream encoded instances having different bit rates; select one of the first stream encoded instances to be transmitted from the apparatus over a network, wherein the selection of the first stream encoded instance is based at least in part on an analysis of quality indices of the second stream encoded instances and quality indices of the third stream encoded instances; select one of the second stream encoded instances to be transmitted from the apparatus over the network, wherein the selection of the second stream encoded instance is based at least in part on an analysis of quality indices of the first stream encoded instances and the quality indices of the third stream encoded instances; select one of the third stream encoded instances to be transmitted from the apparatus over the network, wherein the selection of the third stream encoded instance is based at least in part on an analysis of the quality indices of the first stream encoded instances and the quality indices of the second stream encoded instances; and multiplex the selected ones of the first and second stream encoded instances for transmission over a same channel.