Is there a codec that would allow one stream of data where there would be a baseline of data for the lowest quality and where more data could be sent from a source that would increase the quality and vice versa?
Usually, we have multiple versions of one video or stream. Like 240p, 360p, 480, 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 2160p... where each one of these is completely different set of data with different codec settings. This causes the problem of the multiplication of data. So I was wondering if some codec would allow having the highest quality version only, like 2160p which could be a bitrate of 10 Mb/s but it would allow the slow online consumers to receive, say 512 kb/s from the same data source and therefore receive a lower quality of the original source....or are we destined to always have dedicated files/streams per each source quality?
I guess maybe it is not a codec problem but a container problem? I have been working with video streaming for a bit so I have a general understanding of codecs and containers but I am no expert.
To expand a bit further if it is still not clear - imagine having a video file that is a few gigs in size and you want to stream it. Usually, a stream means the source will have to be chunked into, say 5 seconds, long segments. Say each segment would be 10 Mb in size. A fast consumer would be able to receive the entire chunk in under 5 seconds, which would allow the consumer to consume the entire video in original quality. But say a slow consumer would be able to consume only the aforementioned 512 kB, in which case only half a meg from the segment would be sent to this consumer, leaving out the 9.5 megs, and the consumer would still be able to render the chunk of video that was received.
So the codec/container would work as a layered or composed structure with various layers of data, each layer providing more "quality" to the preceding layer. Hence the more "layers" one consumes, the higher quality will be rendered. I guess something in line with progressive jpeg images that were popular in the days of dial-up internet.
