SUMMARYAdaptive video coding algorithms can encode a video stream dynamically on the basis of the amount of bandwidth available in a network. In this paper, a novel approach for adaptive video coding based on look-up tables has been proposed. On the basis of the network conditions, the proposed codec estimates quantization parameter (QP) and also the spatial resolution for a group of pictures from the look-up table. Then, QP for each frame is estimated on the basis of the motion content in each frame. More motion leads to more burden of bits while encoding the motion vectors. Also, quantization noise is less prominent in high-motioned frames than frames possessing low motion information because of the temporal masking phenomenon of the human eyes. So, the main trick of the proposed scheme is to assign higher QP to the frames having higher motion than those having less motion. This method also reduces the requirement of excess bits for encoding of motion vectors having higher motion content. Additionally, QP is adjusted on the basis of the buffer availability in order to avoid bit loss error. Experimental results show the efficacy of the proposed codec.