How to change the Bitrate in SCRCPY to increase video quality.
If you are using SCRCPY with its default settings, you are probably pretty impressed by the quality and performance already. But what If I told you this was entirely customisable? Allowing you to increase or decrease the bitrate, thus increasing either the quality or the performance. Well, you can and the process is really easy.
Related: Check out all of our SCRCPY guides in one place.
SCRCPY is a popular free tool that allows you to view and control Android devices from your computer. By default, SCRCPY uses a bitrate of 8 Mbps, which is a great starting point for most devices. But one that may not always produce the best video quality, especially with fast-moving content or swipes taking place.
The best thing about SCRCPY though is that it is insanely customisable meaning you can adjust the bitrate to increase the video quality or lower it to increase performance. In this article, we'll explain how to change the bitrate in SCRCPY to improve video quality.
What exactly is Bitrate? And how does it affect quality?
Before we get started, let's first understand what bitrate is. Bitrate refers to the amount of data used to represent one second of video or audio. In other words, it's the amount of data transferred per second to display video or audio. The higher the bitrate, the better the video or audio quality, but it also requires more bandwidth.
Why Change Bitrate in SCRCPY?
SCRCPY allows you to mirror your Android device's screen to your computer in real-time. The default bitrate in SCRCPY is 8 Mbps, which may not always be sufficient for high-quality video output. You may notice pixelation or blurriness in the video, especially if the video has a lot of movement or action. To address this issue, you can increase the bitrate to improve the video quality. For a good starting point I find 16 Mbps is a nice balance but you can certainly go higher if your hardware can support it.
How do you Change the Bitrate in SCRCPY? Change bitrates in SCRCPY.
To change the bitrate in SCRCPY, you'll need to use the command prompt. Here's how you can change the bitrate:
- Open Command Prompt on Windows, press the Windows key + R to open the Run dialogue box. Type "cmd" and hit Enter
- Next, navigate to SCRCPY Directory by doing the following. Type "cd" followed by the path to the SCRCPY directory. For example, if SCRCPY is installed in the C drive on Windows, you can type "cd C:\scrcpy".
- Once you have pointed Command Prompt to the correct location type the following command: "scrcpy --video-bit-rate= [bitrate]". Replace [bitrate] with the desired bitrate value.
For example, if you want to set the bitrate to 16 Mbps, type "scrcpy --video-bit-rate=16M". Note that the "M" represents Mbps, so make sure to include it.
- Finally, press Enter to run the command. SCRCPY will now start with the specified bitrate. Just keep in mind that the higher you go the less performance you will get. I personally find 16M to give the best balance but you can experiment with what works best on your devices.
If you would prefer to follow this guide and more like it in video format make sure you can find tons of SCRCPY videos over on YouTube.