Embodiments of the present invention provide a streaming media segment preparation method and apparatus. The method includes: determining at least one quality point, where the at least one quality point is separately used to indicate quality of at least one target segment of streaming media in a first time period; and determining, according to the at least one quality point, the at least one target segment of the streaming media in the first time period. In the embodiments of the present invention, streaming media segments are prepared by taking a quality factor of the streaming media segments into consideration, which may avoid the problem that redundant segments are generated during preparation of the streaming media segments according to bit rates, thereby reducing a storage volume of a server.