Abstract: A system and method are provided for analyzing and transmitting video over a switched network. According to an aspect of the invention, two phases are generally provided: an analysis phase performed before transmission of the video; and a transmission phase performed after analyzing the video stream. During the pre-transmission video analysis phase, the video stream is analyzed in order to determine the needed traffic control parameters, such as the peak cell rate, the sustained cell rate, and the maximum burst size. The goal of the analysis phase is to select a transmission traffic contract for the encoded video stream that will minimize the utilization of network resources and permit the quality of the video to be maintained. After the analysis phase, the transmission phase is performed to transmit the video over the network in accordance with the selected traffic control parameters.