Increasing bitrate during export in Premiere or queue export in Media Encoder

[creativesatrizortvr]

Hello all-

I have a 26 mbps video footage at 4k (4096x2048) 16:9 aspect ratio 4:2:0 YUV video with 30 fps and no audio.

Now, if I increase bitrate while exporting at 100 Mbps VBR 2 pass, will it give me a better output quality?

Or let me rephrase, is there any benefit if I import a 26 mbps bitrate footage and increase it's bitrate to 100 mbps while exporting other than change in file size?

[excited_Genie16B8 · Accepted solution]

You can't really make the original footage "better".  The best you can hope for is "the same".  Mostly, you try to limit the "worsening".

Higher bitrates can help limit artifacts.  Better codecs (like Cineform and DNx) are also good for proxies, intermediates and even masters.

Lossless codecs (like UT and Lagarith) will produce identical results.

But with highly compressed codecs like H.264 and HEVC, there will be some generational loss.  How visible that is will depend on your footage and export settings.  There's not really any benefit to what you're suggesting.