OBS Recording Bitrate: Choose the Most Appropriate One

OBS recording bitrate affects the speed and amount of the transferred data in OBS. In this case, it may somewhat affect the final video quality or audience experience. Then, what is it technically, and how do you set it for the best result? Let's dive in!

What is OBS Recording Bitrate

Bitrate is measured in kilobits per second (kbps), meaning how many bits and at what rate/speed you send out data. OBS recording bitrate is the data amount and transferring speed of OBS video recording. As OBS supports both video recording and video streaming, you can set the bitrate for both the video streamed and recorded.

To set the video bitrate, you can launch OBS Studio, choose the "Settings" icon, and go to "Video Bitrate" under "Output".

Best Bitrate for OBS Recording

The best OBS bitrate varies with the different video resolution and frame rates. We list some of the recommended OBS bitrates in the table below.

OBS Recording Quality High vs. Indistinguishable

There are four options in the "Output" tab under "Recording". They are "Same as stream", "High Quality", "Indistinguishable Quality", and "Lossless" Quality. And many people are wondering if the video bitrates for "High Quality" and "Indistinguishable Quality" are different.

The fact is that Quality presets do not use a bitrate target. Instead, they use a quality target. For instance, if all you stream is a static image, the resulting file will be tiny compared to a full-motion FPS game. The choice of the presets is based on your canvas resolution.

The Bottom Line

After reading the whole passage, we hope you know enough about OBS recording bitrate. We also recommended some bitrates for your video recording. However, you can always try to find the most appropriate video bitrate for your output video. Please share this post with more people who are curious about the OBS video bitrates setting.