1. A method comprising: receiving digital video frames of an image including a plurality of objects in a scene, wherein the frames comprise a plurality of blocks defined by an encoding scheme; detecting the plurality of objects through a visual object detection process to derive object detection data; determining a mathematical activity level for each block of each frame; combining the object detection data with the mathematical activity level to determine bit allocation value; and using the bit allocation value to determine a number of bits to encode the detected plurality of objects, wherein the plurality of defined objects is allocated a greater number of bits relative to other objects; wherein the mathematical activity level is provided as an activity map indicating an amount of change among pixels in each block of the plurality of blocks, wherein the combining step comprises multiplying the activity map data with the face data and applying a normalization factor to produce a bitrate allocation parameter.