A method and apparatus for encoding a source media program is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises the steps of transcoding the source media program to produce a constant video quality transcoded version of the media program, determining if a portion of constant video quality version of the transcoded media program fails to satisfy a constraint, if the portion of the transcoded media program fails to satisfy the constraint, adjusting at least one transcoding parameter of a set of transcoding parameters, transcoding the portion of the source media program according to the adjusted at least one transcoding parameter to produce a constant bit rate version of the portion of the transcoded media program, and substituting the constant bit rate version of the portion of the transcoded media program for the constant video quality portion of the transcoded media program.