VIDEO ON DEMAND SERVER SYSTEM AND METHOD

A Video-on-Demand Server architecture transmits a plurality of pre-coded programs having different bit rates across a fixed bandwidth channel. For each program, a generator generates a plurality of different bit rate representations for each program. Each generator also provides control information at each of a plurality of successive time windows T for each bit rate representation. The control information provides a bit rate and a quality measure during each time window T. The control information enables a statistical multiplexer to select a bit rate representation for each program during each time window T to maximize the quality of the selected representations while not exceeding the total available channel capacity.