Disclosed herein is a method for selectively filtering and encoding a video signal having at least one frame including a matrix of pixels. The method includes selecting a set of pixels within the frame, determining an initial performance measurement for the selected set of pixels, provisionally applying each filter to the set of pixels, determining a second performance measurement for each filter provisionally applied to the selected set of pixels, and applying the at least one filter to the selected set of pixels to generate a reconstruction of the frame if the at least one filter is determined to have a second performance measurement that is better than the initial performance measurement.