AMENDED CLAIMS

received by the International Bureau on 12 November 2014 (12.1 1 .2014)

1. A method comprising:

analyzing (310) a sequence of video frames to generate content metrics (315) for the sequence of video frames, the content metrics being based on the particular content of the sequence of video frames;

estimating (320) a quality function based on the content metrics used with a quality model;

determining (325) parameters for encoding the sequence of video frames based on minimizing a cost function; and

encoding (360) the sequence of video frames using the parameters.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising estimating the cost function using the quality model.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality model is a Gaussian mixture model.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein estimating the quality function includes computing a conditional probability density function based on the content metrics.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the conditional probability density function is a function of resolution and bitrate.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality function is a structural similarity metric. 18

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the structural similarity metric may be correlated to average motion vector magnitude, average spatial prediction error (SPE), and average block variance.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the average SPE is computed as the difference between a pixel value and the average value of one or more neighboring pixels.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the parameters for encoding the sequence of video frames includes determining bitrate and resolution that maximizes the conditional probability density function.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the parameters for encoding include one or more of resolution, bitrate, and forward error correction rate.

1 1. A method comprising:

determining, based on one or more network parameters, a number of video streams (140) to transmit to a server (1 10) that minimizes a cost function over a plurality of receivers (1 15);

determining a resolution for each of the video streams; and

transmitting the number of video streams to the server for distribution to the plurality of receivers, wherein each of the video streams is transmitted at the resolution determined for the video stream. 19

12. The method of claim 1 1, further comprising determining an amount of bandwidth to allocate to forward error correction for each of the video streams.

13. The method of claim 1 1, wherein the cost function is a delay cost function.

14. The method of claim 1 1, wherein the cost function is a distortion cost function.

15. The method of claim 1 1 , wherein the one or more network parameters include one or more of available bandwidth, round trip time (RTT), and packet loss rate.

16. The method of claim 1 1 , wherein the one or more network parameters include available bandwidth, round trip time (RTT), and packet loss rate.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the one or more network parameters further include maximum frame rate of each of the receivers.