Redundancy control in streaming content packager pools

Abstract

Systems and methods are described to enable synchronized encoding of streaming audio or video content between multiple encoders, in a manner that provides for redundancy of the system to vary based on a demand for the output content. End user devices or content distribution systems can monitor how content is output on end user devices, and report such output to a content encoding system. The encoding system can then redundancy provided for streaming content based on the demand by end users. Streams that are in high demand can be processed with high redundancy among devices that provide seamlessly interchangeable content, thus reducing the likelihood of perceived failure for such streams. Streams that are in low demand can be processed with low redundancy, reducing the computing resources used to process the stream while minimizing the overall impact of a processing failure, should one occur.