Live streaming from home: the upload you need

YouTube publishes a recommended and a minimum bitrate for each live resolution and frame rate (fps, frames per second), for two groups of video codec. A codec is the method your software or console uses to compress the video. H.264 (also called AVC) is the long-established one; AV1 and H.265 (also called HEVC) are newer. YouTube lists lower bitrates for AV1 and H.265 than for H.264 at every resolution, and Twitch says HEVC gives higher quality at lower bitrates than AVC. These are YouTube's figures as listed on its live encoder settings page, checked 25 October 2026:

Frame rate matters as well as resolution (on H.264, 1080p asks for 17Mbps at 60fps against 14Mbps at 30fps), and so does codec: AV1 or H.265 takes 1080p at 60fps from 17Mbps to 12Mbps. Whether you can use the newer codecs depends on your streaming software, your graphics card or console, so check its settings before planning around the lower figures.

Plan around the recommended column; the minimum is the floor YouTube lists, not a target.

Twitch's most recent bitrate figures come from a blog post of 17 June 2026 announcing 2K (1440p) and Dual Format streaming. In the 2K part of that post, Twitch said it had raised bitrates to up to 9Mbps for 1440p and up to 7.5Mbps for 1080p. Both 2K and Dual Format run on Enhanced Broadcasting (explained below), so treat those figures as belonging to that set-up rather than as a limit for every stream. Twitch's developer documentation points to its Broadcasting Guidelines, in the Twitch Help Center, for detailed recommendations; check them for the limit that applies to the way you stream before you set up.

• 1080p and below use H.264, which Twitch calls AVC.
• 2K (1440p) streaming is available to all Partners and Affiliates and uses HEVC (H.265). Twitch says HEVC at 9Mbps gives higher quality video than you would get by pushing AVC above its recommended bitrate.
• Dual Format, which sends a horizontal and a vertical version of your stream at the same time, is open to all streamers.

Enhanced Broadcasting began as a beta with NVIDIA and OBS in January 2024. Your computer encodes several versions of the stream on its graphics card and sends them. We did not find a published upload figure for Enhanced Broadcasting in Twitch's announcements. What Twitch does say is that OBS can set Enhanced Broadcasting up automatically, based on your computer's processing power and your upload bandwidth, so let OBS run that check on the connection you will actually stream from.

This matters for your viewers too. Transcoding is what lets Twitch offer lower-quality versions to people on slower connections, and Twitch said in 2024 that it had historically only been able to guarantee transcodes to Partners. In its June 2026 post it said it has added server-side transcoding for Partners and many Affiliates when streaming in 2K with Enhanced Broadcasting. If your stream has no lower-quality versions, viewers get only the version you send, so someone on a slow connection may struggle to watch a high-bitrate stream.

Consoles can broadcast to Twitch directly: Twitch lists Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 alongside streaming software such as OBS Studio, Streamlabs and Twitch Studio. We found no published upload requirement for console broadcasting, so test from the console and leave headroom as below.

Published bitrates only help once you set them against your own line. Three steps:

Run a cable from the router to the machine that streams if you can. OBS says Wi-Fi may be unstable for streaming and recommends a wired connection when you stream. Cloudflare gives the reason: a wired connection avoids radio interference and signal-strength problems, while Wi-Fi signals weaken with distance and objects in the way.

OBS says the bitrate you can use depends on your stable upload speed, not your best result. It explains that when your software reports dropped frames, the connection to the streaming server is not stable or cannot keep up with the bitrate you set, and that too many can disconnect you altogether. With a constant bitrate, the stream needs the same capacity every second, dip or no dip.

If you can't run a cable yet, Cloudflare suggests moving closer to the router. Until you can wire it, we would leave extra headroom when you set your bitrate.

Our guide to wiring your home with Ethernet covers cable runs, switches and the alternatives when the router is in another room. If a cable is plugged in but the connection is missing or slow, see wired connection not working? Ethernet fixes. For the wider set-up of a gaming PC or console, including ping and NAT types, see our guide to broadband for online gaming.

Your stream is not the only thing in the house that sends data. Openreach's examples of uploading include saving files to Google Drive and putting videos on YouTube, and it notes that bandwidth-heavy activities leave less room for anything else. Everything below draws on the same upload as your stream:

• phones and laptops backing up photos and videos to the cloud;
• computers syncing folders to services such as OneDrive, Google Drive or iCloud;
• someone else on a video call, which sends their camera and microphone;
• someone uploading a finished video, or another stream in another room.

Before you go live, pause what you can. Openreach suggests closing programs and switching off devices you aren't using. For cloud sync that runs constantly, look for a speed limit in its settings. Microsoft's OneDrive app, for example, lets you cap the upload rate, set it to Adjust automatically so it uploads in the background using only spare bandwidth, or pause syncing for a set time.

Heavy uploads can also make the whole connection laggy. Apple says that on a network its Network Responsiveness test rates Low, apps such as FaceTime or games may be unreliable while another device backs up photos or downloads a film. On a Mac running macOS Monterey or later, type networkQuality into Terminal to run it. If games and calls lag whenever someone uploads, that may be bufferbloat, explained in our guide to lag when someone uploads. If your router lets you prioritise devices, our guide to QoS, work mode and game mode explains when that helps.

Uploading a finished video, rather than going live, is a different job. It doesn't have to keep up in real time, so a slower upload means waiting longer, not a stream that breaks up. YouTube's recommended settings for uploaded videos use variable bitrate, and it says no bitrate limit is required. For reference, it lists 8Mbps for 1080p (12Mbps at high frame rates) and 35 to 45Mbps for 4K (53 to 68Mbps at high frame rates) as recommended bitrates for the video file, which describe the file, not your connection.

How long the upload takes depends on the file size and your upload speed. Broadband is measured in megabits, files in bytes, and there are 8 bits in a byte. Illustrative arithmetic only: a 10GB file is 80,000 megabits, so at a steady 20Mbps upload it takes about 4,000 seconds, or around 67 minutes, before any overheads. Double the upload and the time roughly halves. Our guide to Mbps, MB/s and Gbps shows how to do this sum for any file.

YouTube's limits are worth knowing for long recordings: the maximum upload is 256GB or 12 hours, whichever is less. Videos over 15 minutes need a verified account, and YouTube says to use an up-to-date browser for files over 20GB.

OBS says dropped frames or disconnections point to a network issue between your computer and the ingest server, and that OBS itself is extremely unlikely to be the cause. Its troubleshooting steps:

1. Try a different ingest server.
2. Lower the bitrate and see whether the drops stop.
3. Use a cable instead of Wi-Fi.
4. Turn off VPNs and check security software or bundled "network optimising" software, which OBS lists as possible causes.
5. Update your network drivers on the PC.
6. Restart the modem and router. Faulty kit, including cables, network cards, switches and extenders, can also be to blame.
7. Test with Enhanced Broadcasting turned off on Twitch, or set a maximum streaming bandwidth below your test results, as OBS suggests.
8. Contact your provider if problems continue. OBS notes that unexpected congestion along the route can happen.

OBS also has a dynamic bitrate option, which lowers your bitrate when the connection can't keep up instead of dropping frames. It keeps you live, but at lower quality, and OBS points out that it does not fix the cause.

If the stream is fine but your game feels laggy, that is latency rather than upload; our guide to latency, ping and jitter explains the difference.

If you have wired the streaming machine, cleared other uploads and still can't get a reliable upload for the quality you want, the limit is the connection. Two checks before you change anything:

• Know what you are on. Copper, part fibre, cable and full fibre can have very different uploads. Our guide on how to check which type of broadband you have shows where to look.
• Compare with your contract. Fixed broadband contracts must set out minimum, normally available, maximum and advertised speeds for upload as well as download, and what you can do if speeds fall short continually or repeatedly. If your measured upload keeps falling below the minimum in your contract, our guide to broadband speed promises and your rights explains what to do next.

If you decide you need a bigger upload, look at the upload figure for each package, not the download in its name, and check the minimum upload the contract would state. You can compare deals at your postcode to see what is available at your address, or start from the fibre broadband deals page or the broadband providers list. The comparison is run by our partner with live data; we don't switch you ourselves or rate providers, so confirm the upload speed with the provider before you order.