Constant Bitrate or Variable Bitrate for Gameplay videos???

[Iver Hicarte]

I know what CBR and VBR is, so no need to explain what these are to me. I just wanna know what kind of bitrate is the best to use for gameplay footage. I record FPS games like CS:GO, Battlefield 1, COD and many many more shooter games. So what is the best kind of bitrate to be used in these kind of situations?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!

 

[Solandri]

You can also think of CBR and VBR as variable quality (CBR) and constant quality (VBR). With CBR, because the bitrate is constant, if there's a lot of fast action going on in the scene, you end up spreading the bits thin and the quality drops. So the picture ends up being super-sharp on still scenes, but pixelated on action scenes. With VBR, the fast action scenes get more bits devoted to them so quality remains relatively constant in still vs action scenes.

The drawback of VBR is that you need two passes to encode it. The first pass figures out where the action scenes are so more bits can be assigned to it, the second pass does the encoding. If the extra time of the two-pass encoding is not a problem for you, then VBR is preferable. (For streamed playback, VBR can be a problem for people with marginal bandwidth. Even though the average bitrate of the entire movie is just less than the connection bandwidth, sustained action scene can cause the bitrate to exceed the available bandwidth. And the video will end up buffering.)

 

[marksavio]

VBR definitely but VBR alone isnt good for uploading to streaming sites. what encoding software are you using? are you uploading this on a streaming site? or you just want to archive it in your PC and share it with friends offline?
depending on the encoder you are using. the best method for archiving is using a constant rate factor (CRF). it gives you the best constant quality in all scenes.
for streaming best is a two-pass average bit rate (ABR) or constrained encoding (VBV).
ABR is the popular choice if you are for example uploading vids to youtube. just set the desired bitrate and you are good to go. VBV is like CRF but with a constrained maximum set bitrate. this will give better quality than ABR if the constraints are set correctly but not all encoders support this feature efficiently.

for uploading as
1080p@60fps 4,500 - 9,000 Kbps
1080@24fps 3,000 - 6,000 Kbps
720p@60fps : 2,250 - 6,000 Kbps
720p@24fps : 1,500 - 4,000 Kbps