Streaming video content (e.g., content from the Internet, locally saved content, or the like) from a mobile device to a television via wireless display technology is becoming increasingly popular. For example, a Wi-Fi communications channel may be used to implement Wireless Display (WiDi) and/or Miracast technology to enable users to stream videos, movies, photos, or displayed content from a mobile device to a television.
In some implementations, wireless channel capacity may not be a bottleneck or concern when transmitting video content over a wireless channel. However, streaming video content at an unnecessarily high encoding bit rate via wireless channel may cause several problems such as wasting wireless bandwidth, causing interference in the environment of the transmission, and reducing the battery life of mobile device streaming the video content. In particular, the reduced battery life may be dramatic and may degrade the user experience for a user of the mobile device and/or television. In other implementations, wireless channel capacity may be a concern and streaming video content at a lower bitrate may be advantageous for the utilization of the wireless communications channel.
Current WiDi/Miracast solutions may set a fixed relatively high video encoding bitrate (e.g. an average encoding bit rate of about 9 megabits per second (Mbps) and a max encoding bit rate of about 12 Mbps for 1920×1080 resolution video) to guarantee the transmission will not degrade the quality of the source content (e.g., the content on the transmitting device) no matter what video content is streamed. Such techniques may cause short battery life during WiDi/Miracast video streaming. Solutions have been proposed to reduce the encoding bitrate, but such solutions may not ensure quality video or quality of user experience at the receiving display device (e.g., a television).
As such, existing techniques do not provide wireless streaming of video content with a reduced bitrate to enhance batter life at the transmitting device (e.g., a mobile device) and high quality video presentment at the receiving device (e.g., a television). Such problems may become critical as the desire to transmit video content from a transmitting device for presentment of high quality, aesthetically pleasing video content at a receiving device becomes more widespread.