US 12684156 B2 / Jul 14, 2026

Reducing network bandwidth consumption using generically encoded media objects

Described herein are ways to advantageously reduce bandwidth use between an internet service provider and its subscribers by re-encoding media objects to have a generic encoding that can be cached at subscriber devices. When a subscriber makes an authorized request for a media object from a content provider, a cached version of the generically encoded media object may be played by the subscriber even if the subscriber is not a customer of the content provider that originally provided the media object. This can eliminate the need for streaming a new copy of the media object from the content provider. The disclosed systems are configured to identify when differently-encoded media objects represent the same media object so that subscribers can play cached media objects rather than requiring each media object be streamed from different content providers.