Abstract: Various embodiments of an automated adaptive bitrate (“ABR”) encoding system and method that encodes an input video into a set of encoded video streams for ABR delivery, also known as an ABR ladder. The automated ABR encoding system encodes the input video into an initial number of speculative encodings, based on respectively determined resolution and quality level settings for the individual speculative encodings. It then estimates quality scores for a plurality of potential output encodings based on respective output statistics of the speculative encodings. It selects a plurality of better quality output encodings from the plurality of potential output encodings based on the quality scores. It then encodes the input video a second time into the plurality of better quality output encodings. The automated ABR encoding system selects one or more output encodings from the plurality of better quality output encodings to include in the ABR ladder.

Abstract: A method of filtering to remove coding artifacts introduced at block edges in a block-based video coder, the method having the steps of: checking the content activity on every line of samples belonging to a boundary to be filtered and where content activity is based on a set of adaptively selected thresholds determined using Variable-Shift Table Indexing (VSTI); determining whether the filtering process will modify the sample values on that particular line based on said content activity; and selecting a filtering mode between at least two filtering modes to apply on a block boundary basis, implying that there would be no switching between the two primary modes on a line by line basis along a given block boundary. The two filtering modes include a default mode based on a non-recursive filter, and a strong filtering mode which features two strong filtering sub-modes and a new selection criterion that is one-sided with respect to the block boundary to determine which of the two strong filtering sub-modes to use.