What bitrate to use for your videos
Updated: November 10, 2026
Two 1080p videos can look very different and one can be twice the size of the other. The difference is bitrate: the amount of data per second a video uses. Understanding it saves you huge files and blurry videos.
What bitrate is
It’s how much data is used to store each second of video, measured in megabits per second (Mbps). More bitrate = more detail and a bigger file. Less bitrate = a smaller file, but past a certain point you get blocks and smearing, especially in high-motion scenes.
Rough values for the web (H.264)
For screen tutorials with little movement you can go much lower; for sport, games or lots of motion, stay at the higher end.
- 720p at 30 fps: 4–6 Mbps.
- 1080p at 30 fps: 8–12 Mbps.
- 1080p at 60 fps: 12–16 Mbps.
- 4K at 30 fps: 35–45 Mbps.
- AAC audio: 128–192 kbps stereo.
Constant or variable bitrate
- Variable (VBR): uses more data in hard scenes and less in easy ones. It’s the recommended choice for publishing.
- Constant (CBR): always the same. Mostly used for live streaming.
- In tools like HandBrake or FFmpeg you can also use “constant quality” (CRF): you choose the quality and the program picks the bitrate. A CRF of 20–23 in H.264 usually works very well.
What Dembed does with your video
If the platform has adaptive streaming (HLS) conversion enabled, it prepares versions in several qualities and each viewer gets the one their connection can handle. Even so, it’s worth uploading a well-exported file: it’s the source for every version.
Frequently asked questions
Up to a point. Above the recommended values the file gets bigger with no visible difference on a normal screen.