Bitrate Calculator — Required Bitrate

For 1080p: 10-20 Mbps for streaming, 20-50 Mbps for broadcast. For 4K: 25-50 Mbps for streaming, 50-150 Mbps for broadcast, 200+ Mbps for mastering. H.265 achieves similar quality at roughly half the bitrate of H.264.

Higher bitrate = more data per second = better quality. However, there are diminishing returns. Beyond a certain bitrate (depends on codec and content), quality improvements become imperceptible. Fast motion and fine detail need higher bitrates than slow, simple scenes.

CBR (constant bitrate) maintains the same bitrate throughout. VBR (variable bitrate) adjusts based on scene complexity — more data for complex scenes, less for simple ones. VBR gives better quality per file size but less predictable file sizes.

For 4K SDR, YouTube recommends 35-45 Mbps at 24-30fps and 53-68 Mbps at 48-60fps. For 4K HDR, aim higher: 44-56 Mbps at 24-30fps and 66-85 Mbps at 48-60fps. For 1080p SDR, use 8 Mbps at 24-30fps and 12 Mbps at 48-60fps. Upload at the highest quality possible — YouTube will re-encode to its own formats.