# Video bitrate in rooms

This guide will show you how to control and set up the bitrate in rooms as a director and as a guest.

## Default settings

Every guest is viewing video streams in a room with a combined bitrate of 500-kbps. If there is only one video stream, the guest will view the video on 500-kbps. Two video streams: 250-kbps per video.

## Director

As a director of a room you can control the total room bitrate dynamically.

<div align="left"><figure><img src="https://2943598173-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-MZHXv1G8N0MDxwotaT9%2Fuploads%2FKYIF88zb0YYziws8wwoG%2Fimage.png?alt=media&#x26;token=011556df-5c8b-4d52-9b1e-fe734c45870b" alt=""><figcaption><p>Open the room settings via this button as a director</p></figcaption></figure></div>

<div align="left"><figure><img src="https://2943598173-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-MZHXv1G8N0MDxwotaT9%2Fuploads%2FxZU4VYUE9jblEMIq38WI%2Fimage.png?alt=media&#x26;token=d77a873c-23df-4159-aca6-5c48b8ed6d4b" alt=""><figcaption><p>The default is (as explained before) 500-kbps. You can increase it up to 4000-kbps by default (the slider max increases if a higher <code>&#x26;totalroombitrate</code> is set).</p></figcaption></figure></div>

You can control the total room bitrate also with a URL parameter: [`&totalroombitrate=6000`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/totalroombitrate) (alias: `&totalbitrate=6000`)

<div align="left"><figure><img src="https://2943598173-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-MZHXv1G8N0MDxwotaT9%2Fuploads%2FDUZ0HLfDTr431uBPp9Nk%2Fimage.png?alt=media&#x26;token=2f532c0c-4307-4e95-855b-334155d0912b" alt=""><figcaption><p>Default is 6000-kbps now with <code>&#x26;totalroombitrate=6000</code></p></figcaption></figure></div>

When the director joins with `&totalroombitrate=6000`, that value becomes the default for all guests by proxy. You can decrease it dynamically though if the guests have any problems.

## Guest

If you add [`&roombitrate=2000`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/roombitrate) to the guest's link all the other guests can view the video of the guest with a bitrate of 2000-kbps. So three other guests watching the video stream of the guest -> 6000-kbps outgoing bitrate. [`&roombitrate`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/roombitrate) limits any guest viewer in the group chat room from pulling the video stream at more than the specified bitrate value.

You can also use [`&totalroombitrate`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/totalroombitrate) on the guest's URL if you want to have different settings for each guest. So adding `&totalroombitrate=4000` to a guest's URL, the guest can view all video streams in the room with a combined bitrate of 4000-kbps.

If `&totalroombitrate` is not set on a room link, `&videobitrate` will be used as the total room bitrate target for that guest.

If you use [`&controlroombitrate`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/and-controlroombitrate) on the guest's URL, the guest can change the total room bitrate dynamically via a slider. If you add `&controlroombitrate&totalroombitrate=4000` to the guest's URL the guest can change the bitrate between 0 and 4000-kbps (it cannot exceed the `&totalroombitrate` cap). It doesn't affect what other guest's are viewing.

![](https://2943598173-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-MZHXv1G8N0MDxwotaT9%2Fuploads%2FCfHWQljUJR3vB6wEP7OR%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=cb3a4d77-5437-4506-b8c3-032c92859f18) ![](https://2943598173-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2F-MZHXv1G8N0MDxwotaT9%2Fuploads%2FGDg6auZNc7bfDRezsmDj%2Fimage.png?alt=media\&token=b016c26b-d220-4850-92ac-59044b6cf15e)

## Examples

<https://vdo.ninja/?director=TestRoomName&push=directorStreamID&broadcast&totalroombitrate=5000>\
When adding `&broadcast&totalroombitrate=5000` to the director's URL the guests can only see the video of the director with a bitrate of 5000-kbps. So they get pretty good video quality. If you have three guests in the room the outgoing bitrate fot the director is 15000-kbps, so it's pretty high.

If you want a guest to appear in scenes (for example in OBS) but you don't want other guests to see their video stream you can add `&roombitrate=0` to the guest's URL. [`&roombitrate`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/roombitrate) only affects the bitrate in the room, not in scenes.

Adding [`&maxbandwidth=80`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/and-maxbandwidth) to the guest's URL will allow to them to put 80 % of their available bandwidth into the video stream. This is useful for high quality gaming streams for example.

## Scenes

For scenes in OBS or other softwares ([`&scene`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/mixer-scene-parameters/scene) or [`&solo`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/mixer-scene-parameters/and-solo)) use [`&videobitrate`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/bitrate) to specify the bitrate per video stream or [`&totalscenebitrate`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters/and-totalscenebitrate) to get a combined bitrate for all videos in the scene.

3 guests in a scene -> `&videobitrate=3000`\
The bitrate of each guest will be 3000-kbps.

3 guests in a scene -> `&totalscenebitrate=3000`\
The bitrate of each guest will be 1000-kbps.

## Notes and caveats

* Screen shares are weighted differently in the room mixer; they can take a larger share of the total budget versus camera feeds.
* Hidden, muted, or disabled videos are not counted when the room bitrate is split across streams.
* `&minroombitrate` can enforce a per-stream floor when splitting a total room bitrate.

## Meshcast

If you are using [`&meshcast`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/meshcast-parameters/and-meshcast) on the director's or guest's URL remember that you control the bitrate via [`&meshcastbitrate`](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/meshcast-parameters/and-meshcastbitrate) on the sender's side.

## More Parameters

There are more parameters to control the bitrate. You can find them here:

{% content-ref url="video-bitrate-for-push-view-links" %}
[video-bitrate-for-push-view-links](https://docs.vdo.ninja/guides/video-bitrate-for-push-view-links)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="../advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters" %}
[video-bitrate-parameters](https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/video-bitrate-parameters)
{% endcontent-ref %}