What is a good, high quality data rate for mp4?

Question

I am exporting a 720p at 30 fps video from Final Cut Pro 6 using quicktime conversion. It has a field for data rate with no presets. What is a high mp4 quality data rate (in kbps) that isn't grainy?

Solution

"Isn't grainy" is a very subjective thing. Take a look at Wikipedia article about HD video. See that most online video services encode 720p at 2.5 - 4Mbit/s. Netflix encodes at 5Mbit/s. This is all using H.264 codec of course, which I presume you're using.

Depending on what the target for your video is, you might want to increase or decrease the bitrate. If it is to be watched online, probably smaller bitrate will do (you don't want your users to wait for long while the video is being downloaded), and if you're encoding your kid's first steps for your family video archive, you would probably want to go for a higher bitrate.

Comments

[slhck]

Can't be answered unless you know 1) the video content 2) frame rate 3) the encoder being used. Even then, just try it. Video encoding involves some tweaking.

[Daniel says Reinstate Monica]

@slhck Ah I see.

[slhck]

If you're using Final Cut Pro you should see much more than just MP4. MP4 is a container, not a codec. H.264 would be a codec, or MPEG-4 Part II would be. H.264 needs a much smaller bandwidth than MPEG-4 Part II for achieving the same quality. Don't you have the possibility to try out different settings? Video for the web needs to adapt to a certain bandwidth, it's probably not like you can choose (in most situations).

[Force Flow]

Try something between 1200kbps and 2500kbps and see how you like the results.