Patent ID: 8635357

Claim:
A method for distributing media data, the method comprising: performing, by a device including a processor, an iterative operation until a final parameter set is selected for transcoding an initial segment, wherein each iteration of the iterative operation comprises: transcoding the initial segment into a plurality of transcoded segments using parameter sets in a current generation of parameter sets; calculating fitness scores of each transcoded segment in the plurality of transcoded segments; determining whether a generation limit has been reached; determining whether at least one of the fitness scores exceeds a fitness score threshold; in response to the generation limit being reached or at least one of the fitness scores exceeding the fitness score threshold, outputting a given transcoded segment, the given transcoded segment being the transcoded segment generated by the iterative operation that has a fitness score greater than the fitness scores of each other transcoded segment generated by the iterative operation, and setting a parameter set employed for transcoding the initial segment into the given transcoded segment as the final parameter set; and in response to the generation limit not being reached and none of the fitness scores exceeding the fitness score threshold: calculating selection probabilities of the parameter sets in the current generation of parameter sets; and performing the following steps until a new generation of parameter sets includes a threshold number of parameter sets: selecting parent parameter sets based on the selection probabilities of the parameter sets in the current generation of parameter sets; and generating a child parameter set in the new generation of parameter sets by recombining values of encoding parameters in the parent parameter sets; and setting the new generation of parameter sets as the current generation of parameter sets; and generating, by the device, a transcoded media data stream comprising the given transcoded segment.