OBS Studio has numerous settings which can be adjusted to improve recording quality. While this can be overwhelming, it can be simplified to just a few settings. This allows you to greatly improve the quality of your videos without issues.
Increase Bitrate
The most common method used to improve recording quality is to increase bitrate. Your bitrate is essentially how much data is being used for every second of video. The higher your bitrate the better quality your video will be. However, increasing your bitrate will also cause your recorded files to be bigger.
When it comes to your OBS recording settings you will want to be using either the CBR or CQP rate control option. You can find these in the Output settings when in the Advanced mode. Ideally, you will want to use CQP. However, if CQP isn’t available then using CBR will work fine.
When Using CQP: Set CQ Level to 18.
When Using CBR: Set Bitrate to 16,000 or 20,000 for 1080p recordings.
For CQP a lower CQ level will result in better recording quality. Typically you won’t want to go any lower than 15. However, when using CBR a higher Bitrate is better. Using a bitrate of 10,000 will typically be fine but on the lower quality side. Instead, a Birate of 16,000 or 20,000 can be used for 1080p recordings.
Change Recording Resolution
Another way that you can improve recording quality in OBS Studio is to change the resolution. Ideally, you will want to use 1920×1080 for the resolution as this is the standard for high-definition. If your recording resolution was lower than 1920×1080 then you will also need to increase the bitrate to make up for the increased resolution.
You can change the recording resolution by heading to the Video Settings inside of OBS. Here you will want to set both the Base and Output resolution to 1920×1080.
If you are trying to record videos in a higher resolution than 1080p then you will need to use the appropriate resolution. For 4K videos you will want to use 3840×2160, and 2560×1440 for 1440p.
Lower the Frame Rate
Alternatively, you can lower the frame rate of your recordings to improve the quality. Typically, recordings will be in 60 frames per second. This means that the video is being made up of 60 images every second. By lowering the frame rate to 30 you will be reducing the amount of images per second to half as many. As your bitrate assigns a dedicated amount of data to be used, reducing the number of frames allows more information to be used for each image. Resulting in better video quality.
You can change your frame rate in the Video settings. Typically the option is set to Common FPS Values and can be found under the downscale filter setting.
Conclusion
To get better recording quality in OBS Studio you will want to use the correct resolutions and framerate as needed. Pairing this with a high bitrate will ensure enough data is being allocated to your video so that the image quality isn’t blurry.
