Harmonic Inc.
Assistance metadata for production of dynamic Over-The-Top (OTT) adjustable bit rate (ABR) representations using On-The-Fly (OTF) transcoding

Abstract:

Approaches for generating dynamic over-the-top (OTT) adjustable bit rate (ABR) representations of a video with a variable resolution and/or frame rate using on-the-fly (OTF) transcoding and assistance metadata. At an encoder located at a head-end, the encoder encodes a video stream at an initial bit rate and produces optimum representation (OpRep) metadata, which describes an optimum presentation for the video stream for each of a plurality of bit rates or the minimum bitrate below which a presentation becomes sub-optimal. The head-end transmits the encoded video stream and the OpRep metadata to a transcoder of a Content Delivery Network (CDN). The transcoder at the CDN uses the OpRep metadata to dynamically transcode the video stream in a preferred picture resolution and a preferred frame rate at a different bit rate than the initial bit rate using the OpRep metadata.