What Audio Bitrate Should You Use When Compressing Video?
Video file size isn't just about the picture — the audio track takes up a share too. The three presets pair with 192, 128, and 96 kbps AAC audio respectively, and the simpler the picture or the longer the video, the more the audio track's share tends to stand out.
Audio bitrate by preset
| Preset | CRF | Audio bitrate |
|---|---|---|
| High quality | 18 | 192 kbps |
| Balanced | 23 | 128 kbps |
| Max compression | 30 | 96 kbps |
Recommendations by content type
Voice-driven content — narration, podcast-style videos, meeting recordings, interviews — tolerates lower bitrates well. 96-128 kbps is usually clear and understandable, and pushing the bitrate higher yields limited additional benefit.
Content with music, instrumental performance, or audio that needs rich detail preserved (a concert recording, a live band) is worth the 192 kbps that comes with the high-quality preset, or an even higher value set manually in the custom panel, to avoid noticeable quality loss like lost high-frequency detail or a muffled sound.
When you don't need audio at all, remove it
The custom panel lets you remove the audio track entirely. If the video has no meaningful sound (a silent background loop, a mute demo), removing the track saves that share of the file size outright, and there's no need to worry about picking an audio bitrate at all.
- Confirm the video genuinely doesn't need sound before removing the track, so nothing useful gets stripped by mistake.
- If unsure, keep the track at a lower bitrate rather than removing it outright, leaving room to reconsider.
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