Bitrate recommendation on Udemy

Hello everyone,

I am looking to record my first course and I would like to be sure I do it properly to avoid weeks of work and conclude at the end I did do it properly.

I am recording 1920x1080. According to https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229232767-Video-Standards-and-Choosing-a-Camera, for H.264, the bitrate recommendations are 1920x1080 @ 10 Mb/s.

I use OBS to record my screen and I can set the bitrate to 10 Mb/s or higher. I set it to 15 Mb/s just to leave buffer.

But after I edit and then export using DaVinci Resolve, the video has only 2-3 MB/s for bitrate. I used both Automatic -> Best and Restrict to (values like 60000 or 80000 Kb/s, FPS is 30). However, the quality seems good to me.

If I use OpenShot and specify 15 Mb/s, it will provide me ~5MB/s for the exported video.

If I use CapCut for Windows, I can select an export bitrate like 15 Mb/s and the exported video will have, as desired, the chosen bitrate, in this example, 15 Mb/s.

But I would prefer to use DaVinci Resolve.

I also understand that Udemy will re-encode the video for faster playback as per https://community.udemy.com/t5/First-time-course-creation/Is-there-a-limit-for-frames-per-second-and-video-bitrate/m-p/16770#M1266.

I am looking to understand from your experience with these tools and with respect to Udemy's recommendation (1920x1080 @ 10 Mb/s) the following:

1 - does anyone understand why some tools like Davinci Resolve or OpenShot provide me a much lower bitrate than the original file?

2 - did anyone else experience the same (lower bitrate after editing the video than the original file)? If yes, did you have issues when publishing your videos to Udemy?

3 - I sent a test video for feedback from Udemy and regarding video part, I got a warning that I have some black bars, but no complains about bitrate. I uploaded my second video for test and waiting for feedback. If the feedback is good, should I be worried about any technical setting of my video, like much lower bitrate than what Udemy recommends?

4 - another recommendation that Udemy has is "Audio Codec: AAC (256 kb/s or better) or PCM". I can only get AAC with 192 kb/s. For the first test video the feedback for audio part was that it is great and clear. I was advised to use the same settings. Should I be worried about the fact that I can only get AAC with 192 kb/s even if the feedback for my test video was good?

Thank you very much for your help!

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Comments

AndreiBarbu

Hello everyone! Is there anyone who encountered what I am facing and would like to share an opinion? Thank you in advance!

AndreiBarbu

Anyone, please?

I am sure I am not the one facing this.

What bitrate has the final video you guys upload to Udemy? Thank you!

Bella

Hi @AndreiBarbu, thank you for reaching out and asking these great questions!

I'm bumping your post to see if anyone can assist here. Also, I'm tagging some of our Community Champions who may be able to share their experience with you:

@Thor, @Maged-Koshty, @MarkLassoff - do you guys have any insights to share with Andrei? Thank you in advance!

Bella Almeida

Udemy Community

RobertBrown028

Andrei,

This is not a direct reply to your question as I do not have much of a technical background, but I have successfully uploaded 13 courses and was able to sleep nights. My suggestion is you go by what Udemy is telling you. Your videos work. Upload and don't worry. Good luck.

Maged-Koshty

I don't do screencasting in my courses, so I am not the best person to answer this.

But as long as your test videos got no complaints, then there's nothing to worry about.

What udemy provides are recommendations, not restrictions.

So I believe you're good to go.

As for the black lines, that means you might have the wrong screen size when you do the screen capture... just use the standard size 1920x1080 when you capture the screen.

Anyways, as long as the video pass the test video process, then you have nothing to worry about.

Good Luck

AndreiBarbu

Thank you all for the answers! Feel free to ignore the black lines part, it was because I set my Slide Show to be type "Browsed by an individual (window)" instead of being full screen and that added some lines on right and left. The same video included Chrome and VS Code which were without black lines. But I register 1920x1080.

Coming back to my concern, I am also new to this and video technical part, but for my test video, as you already know, it is limited to 720p, but it looks worst that other videos that I set 720p on Udemy.

Taking in consideration Udemy encodes again, I am afraid that there is a difference between encoding a 2 MB/s bitrate video and a 10 MB/s.

For example I checked some preview videos in your course, Robert, Life Skills: "Know Thyself," How to Develop Personal Wisdom, and the quality is not that good. For example, this is how it looks in the video with 720p (maximum availabile):

This is how it looks if I write it on my side:

I am definitely not judging that, I am just saying that on my side I am trying to achieve a good video quality and with Udemy's test video option, I cannot know how the final result will look like.

I am looking to understand the bitrate of other's video before uploading them to Udemy so I can check their actual quality (preferable in 1080p) on Udemy. The bitrate can be checked in Windows by right click on the file -> Properties -> Details -> see under Video, Data rate and Total bitrate

Thank you all!

MarkLassoff

Hi. I am outputting at a bitrate of 6,000 Megabits/second. 1080P 30 FPS.

Hope that helps.

AndreiBarbu

Thank you Mark! I checked one preview on your side and the quality looks great. May I also know the following, please:
1 - bitrate of the original video (screen recording), before editing

2 - what tool you are using to edit and what settings you have for exporting / rendering with respect to bitrate (I am mostly trying to understand if the tool is setting your bitrate automatically or you choose it)

MarkLassoff

Honestly, I think. you're worrying too much about this. I don't know what bitrate I record at. Just go with the recommendations and move on.

I use Adobe Premier for some projects and Camtasia for others.

RobertBrown028

Andrei

Good grief. You have me digging into my OBS studio and adjusting my bitrate and my AAC. I hope I don't electrocute myself or someone else. Thanks for the tip.

AndreiBarbu

I am happy my feedback was useful for you, Robert.

learnwithyan

My bitrate is 1500

Think its good for udemy

JoeKorton085

Hi,

I’m also encountering this issue right now. When I export videos from DaVinci Resolve, the resulting bitrate is significantly lower than expected, even when I set a high bitrate like 15 Mb/s. The quality looks fine, but I’m concerned about meeting Udemy's recommendations for 1920x1080 @ 10 Mb/s.

I’ve also noticed discrepancies with audio bitrate — I can only export with AAC at 192 kb/s, despite Udemy recommending 256 kb/s or better. Similar to you, my test video feedback mentioned no issues with audio clarity, but I’m unsure if this could become a problem later.

If anyone has insights on why DaVinci Resolve or other tools like OpenShot export lower bitrates, or whether this will impact Udemy uploads, I’d greatly appreciate the advice!