Ideal encoding settings for real-life content

clr1107

New Member
Hi,

I'm streaming a show that uses a hardware vision mixer to mix cameras together, then OBS will stream this and any other videos we wish to play to YouTube. We have an i5 13600k and RTX 3060Ti. How can I ensure that I am getting the highest quality possible, particularly for irl content rather than gaming content? I guess I'm asking more for YouTube specific settings rather than OBS ones, as I'm pretty sure I know what I'd do just for regular encoding.

The reason I ask is that YouTube is quite nebulous with its technical specifications. I only recently learned that although YouTube will accept videos at 50fps and 25fps, it won't accept streams at these, and will do some horrific attempt at frame blending! Which is a shame as we are UK based, but now we know, we can plan for that.

Our vision mixer will output 1080p60 (some cameras may be 1080i60 but it will deinterlace). I heard from somewhere (might have been EposVox) that YouTube will allocate a higher bitrate and better encoder to content that is 2560x1440 or higher. So, I think I'd benefit from streaming 1440p60 to YouTube, and letting either OBS or the vision mixer do this scaling. So, our videos we'll play out will also be 1440p60.

We will have a gigabit upload connection, so any bitrate is possible, really. At what point is there diminishing returns? I know that at some point YouTube will start to do more harm than good by allocating a larger bitrate, what should we set it at?

Does anyone have any other tips like this? YouTube-centric or otherwise. I've put below the current encoding settings we are using for the NVENC encoder. (Wish I could use CPU encoding lol.)

I know at some point this becomes more opinion based than anything else, but please do just jot down your opinions!

Thanks.

CodecHEVC
Bitrate30Mbps CBR (I think this was an arbitrary guess at diminishing returns)
Encoding
  • Keyframe Interval: 2s
  • Preset: Slowest (P7)
  • Tuning: High Quality
  • Look ahead: True
  • Psycho Visual Tuning: True
  • Multipass: Two (full resolution)
  • Profile: Main
  • Max B-Frames: 4
  • Scaling: Lanczos, if used, on a source by source basis
ColourRec709
AudioAAC, 48kHz, 160Kbps
 

sandrix

Member
It is better to install the P5 preset; this will not affect the quality, but the load on the encoder will be significantly reduced.

High profile

2 b-frames are really more relevant than 4

Multipass Quarter resolution. It also has a minimal effect on quality, but the load on the encoder is much lower. This is more justified.
 

clr1107

New Member
It is better to install the P5 preset; this will not affect the quality, but the load on the encoder will be significantly reduced.

High profile

2 b-frames are really more relevant than 4

Multipass Quarter resolution. It also has a minimal effect on quality, but the load on the encoder is much lower. This is more justified.
We don't have an issue with the load, is it worth changing to P5 anyway, or just leave it at P7?
 

sandrix

Member
We don't have an issue with the load, is it worth changing to P5 anyway, or just leave it at P7?
You can check it yourself, but our coders are of the same generation.
P7 90%, P6 82%, P5 55% 2560x1440
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