What does bitrate mean, and how do I choose one?

Part 1. – Introduction to Bitrates

 
The term ‘bitrate’ refers to the amount of data that can be transferred per second (generally measured in kilobits). This has traditionally been the main way to control the quality of your stream, although there are other ways to increase the quality (for example: changing your framerate, source quality, etc.)

We have included below several commonly used bitrates, and what they are generally used to broadcast. However, there are other factors to consider when choosing your bitrate.

1.         Consider the projected download speed of your target audience. A viewer should have 1.5x the download capacity of the bitrate they are watching at*. If your audience primarily has dial-up, broadcasting at a higher bitrate will be counter-productive.

                        Note: Again, this is only a guideline.

2.         Broadcasting at a higher bitrate leads to greater bandwidth consumption per user. This can lead to increased streaming cost. This may or may not be a concern for you.

*Below is a link to a popular speed test site which has test points located all over the globe.  All you will need to run this test is a java applet (which they will have you download if you don’t already have it installed).  It’s as easy as installing the applet then clicking the start test button.

Here is the link to the test site…

http://www.broadbandreports.com/speedtest?more=1

Simply select a test location nearest to you and then follow the directions.  The number that you will be interested in is the Kbps number, this will give you a basic idea of what your connection can handle.  The typical DSL connection has around 2044 kbps down and 768 up