In this work, we consider a CDMA cell with multiple terminals transmitting video signals. The concept of a utility function is used to maximize the number of received picture frames with adequate quality per Joule of energy. For a reconstructed signal at the video decoder, the quality is controlled by the encoded bit rate, compression complexity as well as received signal-to-interference-noise ratio (SINR). In this work, video quality is measured in peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) rather than SINR. We find that for a given compression complexity, maximum utility is achieved when the product of bit rate and required SINR is minimized. This maximum usually occurs at maximum video coding complexity. We also investigate the capacity in terms of the number of users that can be supported simultaneously for this system, and how the total utility varies with the number of users in this system. This can be used as an admission policy by the central station.