Question / Help How can you maintain quality while lowering bitrate?

[podonnell]

I am trying to get my bitrate from 2500 to closer to 2000, but the lack of quality at times is very hard. I personally like to stream for personal cataloging, as opposed to streaming for an audience. However I would like both to be possible. I want my bitrate to be high enough that I can look back and not have to squint through the pixelation, but also not too high of quality that everyone has to buffer my stream all the time.

Is there a way, and if so, what is the best way to maintain quality while lowering bitrate? For the most part, there is a good deal of motion in my streams. Can I tweak a setting that will help me achieve this?

Thanks!

 

[UberDragon]

If your CPU can handle it you can select a slower x264 cpu preset in the advanced settings. Better encoding means you'll get more quality out of the same bitrate, however don't expect too much, as it is still real time encoding.

Other ways would be downscaling your resolution or lowering your FPS. Less frames per second means each individual frame gets a larger portion of your selected bitrate.

 

[podonnell]

If your CPU can handle it you can select a slower x264 cpu preset in the advanced settings. Better encoding means you'll get more quality out of the same bitrate, however don't expect too much, as it is still real time encoding.

Other ways would be downscaling your resolution or lowering your FPS. Less frames per second means each individual frame gets a larger portion of your selected bitrate.

Unfortunately my CPU is pretty stressed as it is, but I appreciate that suggestion.

I think the downscaling or FPS lowering is the best idea. Nothing about CBR quality or anything in the advanced section would help, would it?

Thanks!

 

[UberDragon]

If you're streaming to twitch.tv you should make sure to have "CBR" (constant bit rate) checked. A constant bit rate does not usually result in a better quality stream, but it's a twitch.tv standard and not fulfilling it might cause issues at their end. It's also more convenient for the viewers, as what you upload directly translates in what they download and it's easier to know exactly how much you'll need to download.

While using "CBR" the Quality setting has no effect.

If you can upload your latest log file (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7144) maybe there's something else in the settings you might try changing, but I think there might be no other options left.