Veryhighbitrate

Veryhighbitrate is an informal term used in digital media to describe data rates that are higher than those typically used for consumer high-bitrate video. It does not correspond to a formal standard or specification; rather, it serves as a descriptive label within production pipelines to indicate a target fidelity that prioritizes image detail, color accuracy, and temporal information over storage and bandwidth efficiency.

Characteristics of veryhighbitrate workflows often include high bit depth (such as 10-bit or 12-bit), wide color gamut, minimal or no chroma subsampling, high frame rates, and the use of lossless or visually lossless codecs. These configurations aim to preserve original image quality for mastering, archival, or high-end post-production where fidelity is crucial.

Applications for veryhighbitrate workflows include cinema master deliveries, archival preservation, film scanning and restoration projects, and offline editing streams that retain maximum quality for final mastering. The approach is typically chosen when the goal is long-term quality retention rather than immediate delivery to consumer devices.

Considerations and tradeoffs include substantial storage needs, higher bandwidth requirements, and more demanding processing. Not all pipelines or devices support extremely high data rates, and many consumer-focused tools label such configurations with different presets. Veryhighbitrate is thus primarily a professional or archival term, used to communicate intent rather than to define a universal encoding standard. See also bitrate, lossless and visually lossless codecs, uncompressed video, archival quality, and high dynamic range workflows.