What happens to the bitrate when increasing resolution in video?

When increasing the resolution of a video, the bitrate typically increases. This is because higher resolution video contains more pixel information per frame, leading to a larger amount of data that must be processed and transmitted for each second of video. As resolution rises (for example, moving from 1080p to 4K), the number of pixels being encoded and the detail represented in each frame increases significantly.

To maintain video quality at higher resolutions, particularly during motion or scenes with a lot of detail, a higher bitrate is required to prevent quality loss such as pixelation or blurriness. Moreover, the same visual quality at a higher resolution generally necessitates a larger bitrate to ensure that all of the visual details are captured accurately.

While different codecs might manage the bitrate in various ways, the fundamental relationship between resolution and bitrate remains that an increase in resolution generally results in an increase in bitrate to maintain video quality. Thus, when evaluating the impact of resolution on bitrate, the increase in data requirements becomes evident.