I'm recording videos in HEVC 4:3 4k 24fps, and the bitrate looks to be around 110 Mbps. This is really excessive for my videos which are targeted at YouTube, consuming close to 1GB per minute of video. Is there a setting to reduce the bitrate by a lot? Maybe at least half that?  Even 35 Mbps looks good when recording 4k24 in HEVC.

It's good to have the higher bitrate option, but for me the higher bitrate doesn't end up noticable, so it's usually just wasting a lot of hard drive space. I would rather not have to reencode every video from my action 4 down to a more reasonable size.

Youtube's official reccommendations are below, when using h.264, which is less efficient than HEVC.
   

Type HDR	|Video Bitrate, Standard Frame Rate|          (24, 25, 30)	Video Bitrate, High Frame Rate          (48, 50, 60)
8K	100 - 200 Mbps	150 to 300 Mbps
2160p (4K)	44–56 Mbps	66–85 Mbps
1440p (2K)	20 Mbps	30 Mbps
1080p	10 Mbps	15 Mbps
720p	6.5 Mbps	9.5 Mbps
480p	Not supported	Not supported
360p	Not supported

Type SDR	|Video Bitrate, Standard Frame Rate          (24, 25, 30)	| Video Bitrate, High Frame Rate          (48, 50, 60)
8K	80 - 160 Mbps	120 to 240 Mbps
2160p (4K)	35–45 Mbps	53–68 Mbps
1440p (2K)	16 Mbps	24 Mbps
1080p	8 Mbps	12 Mbps
720p	5 Mbps	7.5 Mbps
480p	2.5 Mbps	4 Mbps
360p	1 Mbps	1.5 Mbps

You guys are K. Razy, you know that, right? LOL.

One dude finds the max bitrate way too low and wants an option to be able to set it higher. The other dude finds the bitrate way too high and wants an option to set it lower. Upload your original to YT then download HandBrake (...or whatever your fav converter might be) and reduce the bitrate to whatever you like for storage on your external drive(s).

My 1080p recordings are 30Mbit. They are taking up way too much space and I don't wanna end up with 235 x 4TB storage drives. Whichever I want to upload to YT, I upload them in the original 30Mbit quality. After that I convert them to 15Mbit. They still look great on a MacBook Pro hires display and take up half the space.

Of course the 3rd option would be that manufacturers will create bitrate settings for everyone's personal taste.

You should take that youtube recommended settings with a grain of salt.
When I uploaded 4K @ 60 fps H.264 some years ago with 80Mbit/s it didn't look great, so I started exporting videos out in 100Mbit/s for the quality.
With OA4 I upload H.265 and 80Mbit/s and think it do look good enough.

Each of my upload now have sizes between 2-10 GB, and I delete the original files when videos have been uploaded.

It is actually great that OA3/OA4 have higher bitrate, then there is less loss in quality when editing in post.

Bit rate also depends on what you are videoing.

Anything that doesn’t contain lots of small detail plus not a lot of movement doesn’t actually need a high bit rate. However, if you are making a video with a lot of movement and small detail, then a higher bit rate is needed or else the details break up.

For instance, walk though trees and leaves twice using a low and high bit rate. Also, keep still and compare what you see.

The still picture with little movement doesn’t need a high bit rate.

So in reality, it does depend on what you are videoing. There is no one correct bit rate.

A lower bitrate can make files more manageable on a computer and also for streaming to say, TV, it will play smoother. Also, lowering the frame rate can help since more bit rate is available for each frame, but you have to be a little more careful in the way that you video, taking the lower frame and bit rate into account. (So not for fast action video)

DJI offers only one Bitrate, if we  want an option for a Lower bitrate. it may not come soon.   you always have the option to lower via post editing in rendering or go with gopro that has a  standard and High bitrate

In my case, I always just re-encode the original source files to smaller and more efficient format like AV1 then archive it after I made a video, those file size are really nothing if you are coming from a professional editing studios... who unless you use Macbooks that has SSD soldered to the mainboard that will die quick if you keep using it as a cache... F to pay my respect to you on using that...

Fishycomics Posted at 9-18 03:08
DJI offers only one Bitrate, if we  want an option for a Lower bitrate. it may not come soon.   you always have the option to lower via post editing in rendering or go with gopro that has a  standard and High bitrate

I think you’re right. It’s a bit like hi fi ….. rubbish in, rubbish out so as long as your computer can handle it, the higher the source the better and then render to whatever you need.

exactly, DJI will pass to the feedback box

Hi, Giroro. Thank you for reaching out. Regretfully, there are no settings that will reduce the bit rate. High resolution and fps will create a high bit rate, If you would like to have a lower bit rate, you'll need to decrease the resolution and fps.

DJI Gamora Posted at 2023-9-20 05:00
Hi, Giroro. Thank you for reaching out. Regretfully, there are no settings that will reduce the bit rate. High resolution and fps will create a high bit rate, If you would like to have a lower bit rate, you'll need to decrease the resolution and fps.

DJI you should know you're losing potential customers over not resolving this issue.

I have a cheap action cam and it was as recent as 2022 that i was still recording all my videos in 720p, in 2023 i made the switch to 1080, and my current camera records at 15Mbps which is fine for almost all of my recordings, and some i still switch back to 720.

My old cheap action cam cases are stating to fail and the batteries aren't the best so i decided to treat myself to a good branded action cam because i can afford it now, I was just about settled on the Action 4 when i discovered this, but i don't want all my videos to double in size, so i'm going to go with an alternative brand instead.

I know you can re-encode them afterwards but i haven't got the time for that.  It would take ages with the amount of footage i take, i'm not an influencer, i just save them for my own memories and occasionally to share with friends&family.  And i'm not the only one.  In the action world there's loads of people who are not influencers that just want to record some of their adventures, where it's not easy to be turning the camera on and off all the time so the videos are very long, and many don't mind spending money but want to keep things as easy to manage as possible.  Massive file sizes are not easy to manage.

beermattuk Posted at 4-28 06:00
DJI you should know you're losing potential customers over not resolving this issue.

I have a cheap action cam and it was as recent as 2022 that i was still recording all my videos in 720p, in 2023 i made the switch to 1080, and my current camera records at 15Mbps which is fine for almost all of my recordings, and some i still switch back to 720.

Youre kidding right? i have 2 other different elcheapo action cameras and they have nothing on the quality of a decent action camera, nothing i tells ya!

Guess which camera is DJI Action 4, both shot in 1080/60 (you don't even need to hit play to know lol)

beermattuk Posted at 4-28 06:00
DJI you should know you're losing potential customers over not resolving this issue.

I have a cheap action cam and it was as recent as 2022 that i was still recording all my videos in 720p, in 2023 i made the switch to 1080, and my current camera records at 15Mbps which is fine for almost all of my recordings, and some i still switch back to 720.

Hi, beermattuk. Thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience. We'd like you to know that we appreciate your valuable suggestions. We will forward your concern to our related department. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Perhaps the Action 4 isn’t for you. The higher bit rate offers high quality source files which you can render as small as you wish.

One of the things I hate about GoPros for instance  is how blocky they can look in faster moving sequences with lots of detail, like leaves. That’s because the bitrate isn’t high enough for that scenario. So your renders are no better at any bitrate.

At least with a high quality source, there’s a better render. Especially with cheaper storage that we have now. I suppose the choice might be nice for more static stuff, but to be honest, if the choice was there, I'd choose the higher bit rate every time.

Video in 4K, large bitrate and render in 720 or 1080 if you want. The quality will be way higher than what you're currently using.

Or rename the LRF files to mp4 and use them. They might actually be 720 in the camera. LRF files are smaller copies of the mp4 files which the Action also records at the same time.

The Action 4 is a great little camera.

I can't imagine watching a 720p footage in 2024, so I'm glad DJI doesn't have that option on their cameras.

For the future you will be glad you recorded memories in highest quality as possible.

DJI  taken away 720P but still uses it with wwebcam.  eventually we all must update.  once yo do then there will be no issues going forward or looking back, got my 2-points in thanks

I believe it's 3 points.