Developers

Using a Per-Title Bitrate Ladder to Optimize Encoding – Try our new Benchmark Tool!

Reinhard Grandl
. 1 min read
Bitrate ladder tool for Per-Title encoding

Per-Title Encoding Ladder Bitrate Tool

The Per-Title Bitrate Ladder Tool allows you to generate a perfect bitrate ladder for each title in your library. This reduces bandwidth and increases quality.

Used by top SVOD providers Per-Title Encoding has been a standard technique in modern video encoding workflows for a few years and is still a key driver in raising the bar in high definition video delivery. Netflix was one of the earliest adopters, back in 2015, relying on per-title encoding to enable high-definition content delivery with reduced bitrate demands. The technology uses a complexity analysis of the assets to calculate a bitrate ladder, which is basically a table containing the optimized bitrate/resolution combinations. This optimization is different for every single video and thus has to be performed for every asset.
Per-title Encoding is an out-of-the-box feature in our Bitmovin Encoder and has been a staple in our highly successful video delivery workflows, effectively making the technology available to a wider user base. As we’re always looking to push the boundaries of what’s possible, we have kept busy refining the Per-Title Encoding process to offer even better results. We identified the bitrate ladder as a key aspect in doing so: Most video-related services use static bitrate ladders without applying content-based optimizations. We improved the way our algorithm calculates the bitrates for each level of quality and created our own way of building content-specific bitrate ladders.

Better quality at lower bitrates through optimized analyses

The challenge lies in finding the best possible correlation between perceived picture quality and bitrate. Our algorithm was optimized to work along the optimal ratio between PSNR (an objective quality metric) and bitrate/resolution.
Our solution is capable of encoding using a significantly reduced bitrate while making no compromises in regards to image quality, when compared with standard encoding profiles. In the example above, our encoder reduces bitrate by 48% and storage by 60% while still increasing the perceived quality by 7,5%.
The Per-Title encoding tool shows comprhensive details about the ladder uotput including quality improvements and bitrate savings.

Check out our tool and see for yourself

Want to see what the encoder can do? We’ve recently released a web-based Per-Title Ladder Benchmark Tool, which allows users to upload assets and receive an analysis of the selected bitrate ladder from a standard selection versus our optimized content-specific bitrate ladder.

New users can try out our tool for free up to 20 times.

Feel free to test different types of video assets. The tool highlights the estimated percentages for bitrate reduction, storage reduction and quality improvement. You can view the process in detail, see how long each individual step takes and get an easy comparison between the standard profile and the per-title profile at a glance.

Reinhard Grandl

Reinhard Grandl

VP Product

Reinhard received his Master degree from the Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, specializing on Networked and Embedded Systems, in 2014 and joined Bitmovin in 2013 as part of the player department. Reinhard’s background includes positions in international research and development companies. As a product leader he has a proven track record of delivering products that exceed customer expectations and drive revenue growth. He is passionate about using technology to solve real-world problems.


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