YouTube Live Bitrate & 1440p Stream Calculator
Find your optimal YouTube Live streaming bitrate to take advantage of YouTube's generous ingest ceilings and VP09 transcoding.
Internet Bandwidth
Speedtest Result*We automatically apply our 70% Stability Rule to leave 30% headroom for game traffic and network jitter.
YouTube automatically grants the superior VP09/AV01 encoder for 1440p streams!
YouTube Live Ingest Standards
Keyframe Interval: 2.0s| Preset Profile | Resolution | FPS | Target Bitrate | Required Upload |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4K UHD 60fps (Highest Quality) | 3840x2160 | 60 | 20,000 – 40,000 kbps | 50+ Mbps |
| 1440p 60fps (VP09 Codec Sweetspot) | 2560x1440 | 60 | 16,000 – 24,000 kbps | 35+ Mbps |
| 1080p 60fps Standard | 1920x1080 | 60 | 9,000 – 12,000 kbps | 18+ Mbps |
| 720p 60fps Casual | 1280x720 | 60 | 4,500 – 6,000 kbps | 10+ Mbps |
The 1440p Upscaling Trick
Even if your monitor is 1080p, you can set your OBS Canvas to 1080p and your Output (Scaled) Resolution to 2560x1440. When YouTube detects a 1440p stream, it routes your video through their superior VP09/AV01 pipeline instead of blurry legacy AVC1.
Higher Ingest Headroom
Unlike Twitch's 8,000 kbps ceiling, YouTube allows up to 40,000 kbps for 4K streams and 24,000 kbps for 1440p streams. If your internet connection has 40+ Mbps upload speed, don't hesitate to stream at 18,000 kbps!