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High Quality Recording (in OBS Studio) with H.264/AVC

The H.264/AVC codec is one of the oldest, and yet still one of the most versatile codecs out there. It is (relatively) simple to encode and decode, supports a variety of chroma subsampling and bit depths, and is one of the first codecs for stereoscopic video.

x264
Option Lossless Near Lossless Indistinguishable High Quality Acceptable Quality
Rate Control CRF
CRF 0 0 to 4 5 to 10 11 to 16 17 to 22
Keyframe Interval 1
Preset ultrafast - placebo
A slower preset only affects file size, quality should be unaffected.
Profile None or high
The high profile is required for 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 encoding.
Tune None
Tuning can slightly improve compression efficiency, but often harms it instead.
x264 Options bframes=0 keyint=1 min-keyint=1
OBS Color Format 4:4:4 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 4:4:4, 4:2:2 or 4:2:0
For empty fields, look further left.

AMD AMF

Built-In
Option Lossless Near Lossless Indistinguishable High Quality Acceptable Quality
Rate Control N/A CQP
CQ Level 5 - 10 11 - 16 17 - 22+
Profile Speed
Max B-frames Any, but less may be faster
AMF/FFmpeg Options profile_tier=high preanalysis=false vbaq=false filler_data=false skip_frame=false
OBS Color Format 4:2:0
For empty fields, look further left.

Additional Notes

  • AMDs H264 encoder is only capable of 4:2:0 SDR (8bit).
  • You can freely adjust the Key-Frame Interval for anything but Lossless. Lossless will (and should) always produce an IDR-Frame every frame.

Intel QSV

Built-In
Option Lossless Near Lossless Indistinguishable High Quality Acceptable Quality
Rate Control N/A CQP
CQQ 5 - 10 11 - 16 17 - 22+
Target Usage veryfast
Profile high
Keyframe Interval 1
Latency normal
B Frames 0
OBS Color Format 4:2:0
For empty fields, look further left.

Additional Notes

  • OBS Studio does not export 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 support for QSV.
  • Intels QSV H.264 encoder is tied to CPU usage, so it may perform worse than x264 would.
  • You can freely adjust the Key-Frame Interval for anything but Lossless. Lossless will (and should) always produce an IDR-Frame every frame.

NVIDIA NVENC

StreamFX
Option Lossless Near Lossless Indistinguishable High Quality Acceptable Quality
Preset Fastest (P1)
Tune Lossless High Quality
H264
Profile High 4:4:4 Predictive High 4:4:4 Predictive (when using I444)
High (when using NV12)
Level Automatic
Rate Control Options
Mode Constant Quantization Parameter
Multi-Pass Single Pass
Look Ahead 0 frames
Adaptive I-Frames Disabled
Adaptive B-Frames Disabled
Quantization Parameters
I-Frame QP
P-Frame QP
B-Frame QP		 0 0 to 4 5 to 10 11 to 16 17 to 22+
Adaptive Quantization
Spatial Adaptive Quantization Disabled
Temporal Adaptive Quantization Disabled
Other Options
Maximum B-Frames Any
B-Frame Reference Mode Any
Zero Latency Default
Weighted Prediction Default
Non-reference P-Frames Default
Reference Frames -1 frames
Low Delay Key-Frame Scale -1
Key Frames
Interval Type Frames Any
Interval 1 frame Any
OBS Color Format 4:4:4 4:4:4 or 4:2:0
For empty fields, look further left.

Built-In
Option Lossless Near Lossless Indistinguishable High Quality Acceptable Quality
Rate Control N/A CQP
CQ Level 0 - 4 5 - 10 11 - 16 17 - 22+
Preset P1: Fastest (Lowest Quality)
Tuning High Quality
Multipass Mode Single Pass
Profile high
Look-ahead Disabled
Psycho Visual Tuning Disabled
Max B-frames 0
OBS Color Format 4:4:4 4:4:4 or 4:2:0
For empty fields, look further left.

Additional Notes

  • You can freely adjust the Key-Frame Interval for anything but Lossless. Lossless will (and should) always produce an IDR-Frame every frame.

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