Bitrate Budget Calculator
Working backwards from a size limit: given the largest file you can store or upload and how long the recording runs, this finds the average video bitrate you can afford after reserving room for audio.
Result
- Available video bitrate
- 6.539 Mbps
- Total bitrate budget
- 6.667 Mbps
- Audio share
- 1.9%
- Duration used
- 600 seconds
6,539 kbps average.
Video plus audio, before container overhead.
How it is calculated
total_bps = max_bytes × 8 ÷ seconds
video_bps = total_bps − audio_bps
It is the inverse of the video file size calculator: feeding the resulting bitrate back in reproduces the size limit.
Worked example
Fit a 10-minute video into 500 MB with 128 kbps audio. The total budget is 500,000,000 × 8 ÷ 600 ≈ 6.667 Mbps. Subtracting 0.128 Mbps for audio leaves about 6.539 Mbps for video.
Assumptions and limits
- Impossible combinations are rejected. If audio alone uses the entire budget (or more), there is nothing left for video and the calculator says so instead of showing a zero or negative bitrate. Raise the size limit, shorten the video or lower the audio bitrate.
- Leave headroom. Container overhead and variable bitrate mean files can exceed the target. Aim 3 to 5% under a hard limit, or use a two-pass or size-targeted encode.
- A very low result will look poor at higher resolutions; a budget is not a quality guarantee.