The bitrate refers to the amount of video data being transferred in a particular amount of time. It mainly affects the size and quality of your video. The unit of measurement is bit/s, or bps, which means bits per second. For streaming videos, bitrate is usually described in megabits per second (Mbps), and for audio in kilobits per second (kbps). The conversion is pretty easy: 1000 kbps equals 1 Mbps.

How does bitrate affect streaming?

From a streaming perspective, a higher video bitrate means a higher quality video that requires more bandwidth.

Is a higher bitrate better? Usually, but not always. An unreasonably high bitrate can put an additional strain on your computer hardware and data bandwidth, and may lead to glitching. That is why it is crucial to figure out the optimal bitrate for your video. For example, the maximum bitrate for 1080p videos (the HD bitrate) is 10,000–15,000 kbps.