Challenges in cloud based ingest and encoding for high quality streaming media

The Netflix ingest and encoding pipeline is a cloud-based platform that generates video encodes for the Netflix streaming service. Due to the large throughput of the system, automated video quality assessment of the source videos and the generated encodes is essential in ensuring the quality of experience of viewers. This paper discusses the motivations for integrating video quality assessment in the production pipeline, outlines currently deployed solutions and presents the technical challenges in improving the system.