Jan Ozer, producer of Streaming Learning Center courses and contributing editor of Streaming Media magazine, reached out to me recently with an interesting question:
If using per-title video encoding (or any other multi-bitrate encoding approach where resolutions are dynamically determined based on video quality metrics rather than predetermined statically) and the encoding algorithm suggests that for a given video source even the lowest bitrates in the encoding ladder could be encoded at 1080p resolution with satisfactory visual quality – is there any reason why one would still want to include resolutions below 1080p in that encoding ladder?
My short answer was: YES.
For my long answer (as well as contributions from David Ronca, Derek Prestegard and Fabio Sonnati) check out Jan’s article Choosing the Resolution for Lower Rungs on Your Encoding Ladder.
