The transmitting end of a content distribution system selectively employs a redundancy mechanism to encoded video data based on the frame type of each frame being transmitted. In the event that a particular frame contains information upon which the decoding of multiple frames may depend, the transmitting end can apply a redundancy mechanism to redundantly distribute the data of the frame throughout a set of data segments, each of which is separately transmitted via the network to the receiving end. Otherwise, in the event that a particular frame to be transmitted does not contain substantial information upon which the decoding of multiple frames may depend, the loss of some or all of the data of the frame may not appreciably affect the presentation of the video content at the receiving end and thus the transmitting end can forgo application of the redundancy mechanism to such frames so as to avoid unnecessarily processing and reduce the overall network bandwidth used to transmit the encoded video data.