Systems and methods for encoding a video stream at multiple bit rates is disclosed herein. An encoder divides each frame of a video stream into a plurality of portions and allocates an available number of bits between the plurality of portions based on user preference information. Portions having one or more objects of interest to the viewer determined based on the user preference information are allocated a higher number of available bits while portions of the frames that do not include one or more objects of interest are allocated a minimum number of bits from the available bits.