ABR variant filtering
Shaping which bitrate rungs the manifest exposes per request — by cost, entitlement, time, geo, or network.
What it is
An ABR (adaptive bitrate) ladder is the set of renditions your packager produced — say 240p up to 1080p — that the player climbs and descends as bandwidth changes. Variant filtering decides which rungs of that ladder the player is actually allowed to see in the manifest it receives.
Why it matters
The top rung is the most expensive to deliver. Capping it selectively is a precise lever: trim egress on cellular networks, honour a viewer's entitlement tier, hold back 4K during budget pressure, or comply with a regional licensing limit — all without re-encoding anything.
How m-cdn applies it
Rules are evaluated by priority, first-match-wins, keyed on time of day, geography, network type, entitlement tier, or budget consumed. The player only ever sees the rungs a matching rule allows. Because tier differentiation can carry legal obligations, activating differentiating filters is gated by the service's compliance acknowledgement.