Patent ID: 8817889

Claim:
A method for use in encoding multimedia content, the method comprising: initiating, by use of a processing unit and a memory, an encoding of a source content producing encoded content; identifying a first segment of the encoded content to be re-encoded, the first segment including a portion but not all of a group of pictures (GOP); identifying a first candidate start point and a first candidate end point for a re-encoding of the first segment; determining, by use of the processing unit and the memory, whether the first candidate start point and the first candidate end point are valid points, the first candidate start point and the first candidate end point being valid if content within a region bounded by the first candidate start point and the first candidate end point is not referenced by content outside the region; and setting the first candidate start point and the first candidate end point as valid re-encode start and end points when the first candidate start point and the first candidate end point are validated.