This disclosure describes techniques for improving functionalities of a video encoder, using parameters detected and estimated by a front-end video capture device. The techniques may involve estimating a blurriness level associated with frames captured during a refocusing process. Based on the estimated blurriness level, the quantization parameter (QP) used to encode blurry frames is adjusted either in the video capture device or in the video encoder. The video encoder uses the adjusted QP to encode the blurry frames. The video encoder also uses the blurriness level estimate to adjust encoding algorithms by simplifying motion estimation and compensation in the blurry frames.