Usage of Target and Maximum Bitrate with the H264 Codec in Premiere Pro?

Question

When exporting a video using the H264 Codec with a variable bitrate in Premiere Pro, you can set the target bitrate and the maximum bitrate. I would like to know how those work together and if there is any rule of thumb on what to set them to.So AFAIK, the target bitrate is the average bitrate that the encoder will try to achieve by balancing out parts of the video where more or less information is required respectively. In that case, what is the purpose of the maximum bitrate setting? Is it the highest possible bitrate that won't be ecelled at any point of the video? Or can the encoder actually exceed the average bitrate over the amount speficied as target bitrate and the maximum bitrate is the highest possible *average* bitrate that the resulting video can have?Also, how can I determine a good value for the maximum bitrate depending on the target bitrate? Let's say I export with 1, 10 or 20 MB/s (as my target bitrate), what should the maximum bitrate setting depend on?

Answer 1

Target maximum and minimum bitrates are a bit confusing. I'll do my best to simplify it. It depends on your content and how you want it viewed and the quality level. For example if you're posting to social media you want to find a sweet spot where the video quality is chef's kiss sharp as well as when it plays, it plays with no delay. Now going back a bit more, you'd have to know the quality of the content. Was it shot in 4k? 1080HD? Is it a 30 second to 1 minute reel? Or a short/feature film that will be shown on YouTube. You have to know all of these parameters to know how to render the final output of your content. An example of what works for me is: If I want a 30-45min reel shot in 4K to be no more that 95MB, I might set the Maximum as 55 and the minimum at roughly half of that at 20-30. You will see at the bottom what the estimated output size will be. I hope this answers your question!