What is Video Bitrate?
TL;DR: Bitrate is the amount of data used per second of video, measured in Mbps (megabits per second). Higher bitrate means more data, which generally means better quality and larger file sizes.
YouTube recommends 8 Mbps for 1080p30 and 35-45 Mbps for 4K30 uploads. For streaming, adaptive bitrate adjusts quality based on internet speed. Variable bitrate (VBR) is preferred over constant bitrate (CBR) because it allocates more data to complex scenes.