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Free Video Bitrate Viewer: see the bitrate of your video over time

Choose a video and see its bitrate second by second and GOP by GOP: the average, the peak and the lowest second, how far apart the keyframes are, the codec, resolution and frame rate, and every moment where the bitrate drops or spikes, so you can jump to it. Then compare the average with the bitrate YouTube recommends for your resolution and frame rate. Nothing is decoded and nothing is uploaded: the tool reads the frame list your file already has, right in your browser.

Updated · Built by Kevin Tabares, long-form YouTube editor at Umbrella Creators.

See the bitrate of a video file

Your file stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded or decoded: your browser reads the file's own frame list right here, in this tab.

How to use it

  1. Choose the video: your export before you upload it, a camera or phone file, or a screen recording (MP4, MOV, MKV or WEBM).
  2. Press Show the bitrate. The tool reads the file's frame list without decoding anything, so even a long video only takes seconds.
  3. Read the average, the peak and the lowest second, and how the average compares with YouTube's recommendation. Click the chart or any drop or spike to see that moment in the player, switch to Per GOP to see each group of pictures, and download the numbers as a CSV.

The bitrate here is the video track only, from the sizes of its frames. The line under the chart also gives the overall bitrate of the file, which adds the audio and the container.

YouTube's recommended upload bitrates

Video bitrate YouTube recommends for uploads, in Mbps, from YouTube recommended upload encoding settings (YouTube Help, read October 21, 2026). Standard frame rate is 24, 25 or 30 fps; high frame rate is 48, 50 or 60 fps.

ResolutionSDR, standardSDR, highHDR, standardHDR, high
8K80 to 160120 to 240100 to 200150 to 300
2160p (4K)35 to 4553 to 6844 to 5666 to 85
1440p (2K)16242030
1080p8121015
720p57.56.59.5
480p2.54not supportednot supported
360p11.5not supportednot supported

For audio the same page lists 128 kbps for mono, 384 kbps for stereo and 512 kbps for 5.1. It also says no bitrate limit is required, so these are recommendations.

FAQ

What is video bitrate?
Bitrate is how much data a file uses for each second of video, usually written in megabits per second (Mbps). A megabit is a million bits and 8 bits make a byte, so 8 Mbps is about 1 MB of picture for every second. More bits leave the encoder more room for detail in fast motion, grain and fine textures; fewer bits give a smaller file. Most exports use variable bitrate, so the number goes up in busy scenes and down in still ones, which is exactly what the chart shows.
How does it measure the bitrate without decoding the video?
Every video file keeps a list of the frames it holds, with the size of each frame in bytes, its time and whether it is a keyframe: the sample tables of an MP4 or MOV, the track runs of a fragmented MP4 and the block headers of an MKV or WebM. The tool reads that list, never the picture, and adds up the bytes of the frames shown in each second and in each GOP. In an MP4 or MOV it only reads the index; in an MKV or WebM the frame headers are spread through the file, so it reads the file once from start to end. I checked it on 58 files (H.264 at constant quality and at constant bitrate, HEVC, HDR in PQ and HLG, VP9 WebM, AV1, ProRes, fragmented MP4, a WebM written as a live stream, a variable frame rate phone style file, recordings made in Chrome, trimmed and offset files with edit lists, files cut short, two real 12 minute exports, and 1 hour and 4 hour files made from one of them): for every file, every second matched the frame sizes and times that FFmpeg's ffprobe lists, byte for byte.
What bitrate does YouTube recommend?
For SDR uploads, YouTube recommends 8 Mbps for 1080p at 24, 25 or 30 fps and 12 Mbps at 48, 50 or 60 fps; 16 and 24 Mbps for 1440p; 35 to 45 and 53 to 68 Mbps for 2160p (4K); 5 and 7.5 Mbps for 720p. HDR uploads get higher values, such as 10 and 15 Mbps at 1080p, and for stereo audio it lists 384 kbps. The same page asks for variable bitrate and says no bitrate limit is required, so these numbers are a reference, not a limit. Source: YouTube recommended upload encoding settings, YouTube Help, read October 21, 2026.
What is a GOP, and what keyframe interval does YouTube ask for?
A GOP (group of pictures) runs from one keyframe to the next. A keyframe holds a full picture and the frames after it mostly store what changed, so a GOP usually starts with a burst of bits. The tool shows how far apart the keyframes are, in seconds and in frames, and the bitrate of each GOP. YouTube's page asks for a closed GOP of half the frame rate. The tool reads where the keyframes are, but it cannot tell whether a GOP is closed or open, because that is written inside the video data, which it does not decode.
Why does my bitrate drop or spike?
With variable bitrate the encoder spends bits where the picture needs them: fast motion, confetti, water, film grain, noise and flashes push the bitrate up, while a still shot, a slide or a dark or black screen pull it down. The tool compares each second with the median of the seconds within 30 seconds of it. It lists a spike when a second reaches twice that median or more, and a drop when it falls to half or less; changes smaller than a quarter of the average are ignored. A drop on a still or dark shot is normal. If a drop lands on a busy shot, click it and look closely at that moment.
Which row of YouTube's table does it use?
The row comes from the frame size: a 1920 x 1080 file is compared with 1080p. Vertical and square videos use the matching 16:9 row, so a 1080 x 1920 phone video is compared with 1080p too, and wide frames such as 1920 x 800 count by their width. Files tagged as HDR (PQ or HLG) use YouTube's HDR table. From 48 fps up it uses the high frame rate column, and for a variable frame rate file it uses the average frame rate. YouTube's page lists these numbers next to H.264 as its recommended codec, so for HEVC, VP9, AV1 or ProRes files read the comparison as a rough guide.
Does it upload my video?
No. Everything runs in this tab: your browser reads the index from the file on your own device and nothing is sent anywhere. That is also why it is quick. In my tests in Chrome on a Mac, a 60 minute MP4 (1.15 GB) was read in less than a tenth of a second, touching only 3 MB of the file; the same video as an MKV, which has to be read from start to end, took under a second, and a 4 hour MKV (4.6 GB) between 1 and 3 seconds.

Who made this

I'm Kevin Tabares. I've edited long-form YouTube videos since 2015 (1,277 videos and 152.2M+ views tracked on YT Jobs) for channels like Rex & Alexa, Puff and Mud. I built this viewer to see where an export spends its bits and how it compares with YouTube's numbers before it goes up, without sending the file anywhere. If you want an editor for your channel, get in touch.

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