Calculation Methodology & Data Sources
Last Updated: November 4, 2026 (Full Verification Audit)
1. Data Provenance & Verification Standards
Unlike tools that rely on unverified forum hearsay, every platform ingest boundary, recommended bitrate, and encoder preset in our database is tracked with explicit provenance. We categorize sources into five distinct tiers:
Directly published by the streaming platform or CDN (e.g. Google YouTube Help, Twitch Broadcaster Guidelines, Facebook Help).
Specifications published by hardware encoder or surveillance manufacturers (e.g. NVIDIA NVENC guidelines, Hikvision, Dahua, ONVIF).
Real-world ingest server behavior observed by professional broadcast engineers (e.g. Twitch 8,500 kbps aggregate ceiling before packet drops).
Calculated bitrates derived from Bits Per Pixel (BPP) curves and codec efficiency multipliers when a platform does not publish fixed tables.
When an endpoint cannot be verified from our test environment (e.g. regional ISP blocks or expired legacy helpdesk URLs), we explicitly tag it as unverified in the UI rather than presenting guesses as verified facts.
2. Platform Ground Truth & Audit Log
11 Platforms AuditedBelow is our complete live registry of audited platforms, exact documentation deep links, provenance ratings, and verification audit dates:
| Platform / System | Provenance | Primary Source URL | Audit Status & Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Twitch live stream | Official Doc | https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/broadcasting-guidelines ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| YouTube Live live stream | Official Doc | https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2853702 ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| YouTube Video Upload video upload | Official Doc | https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171 ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| Instagram (Reels / Feed / Story) video upload | Official Doc | https://help.instagram.com/1038071743007909 ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| TikTok Video Upload video upload | Unverified | https://support.tiktok.com/en/using-tiktok/creating-videos/making-a-post ↗ | ⚠️ Unverified (Access blocked) |
| Kick.com live stream | Official Doc | https://help.kick.com/en/articles/7066931-how-to-stream-on-kick-com ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| Facebook Live live stream | Official Doc | https://www.facebook.com/help/1534561009906955 ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| LinkedIn Video (Organic Feed) video upload | Official Doc | https://business.linkedin.com/advertise/ads/sponsored-content/video-ads/specs ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| X (Twitter) video upload | Official Doc | https://help.x.com/en/using-x/x-premium ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| Vimeo Video Upload video upload | Official Doc | https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12426043233169-Video-and-audio-compression-guidelines ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
| CCTV / IP Security Cameras (ONVIF / Hikvision / Dahua) cctv | Official Doc | https://www.onvif.org/specs/core/ONVIF-Core-Specification.pdf ↗ | ✓ Verified 2026-11-04 |
3. How Often Are Specifications Re-Verified?
We employ a two-layer verification pipeline to keep our data accurate:
- Monthly Automated Inspections: On the first week of every calendar month, an automated verification task crawls all registered documentation endpoints to ensure URLs return HTTP 200 and checks for text changes in platform specifications.
- Event-Driven Community Audits: Whenever a streaming platform introduces major encoding infrastructure (such as Twitch Enhanced Broadcasting with AV1 or YouTube 10-bit HDR ingest), or when a creator reports an outdated limit via our Corrections Portal, our team opens the live page via automated browser testing and publishes confirmed corrections as soon as we can.
4. How the Mathematical Formulas Work
Formula 1: Bits Per Pixel (BPP) Quality Density
Quality MetricBits Per Pixel measures visual information density: the exact fraction of a data bit allocated to each pixel in every video frame.
Formula 2: Output File Size & Unit Standards
Decimal SI vs Binary IECCalculates raw bytes from the aggregate video and audio stream bitrates, converted by your selected unit standard:
This explains why a 4 TB surveillance hard drive formatted in Windows File Explorer displays as ~3.63 TiB.
Formula 3: Target Bitrate from File Size Cap
Discord / TikTok CapsDetermines the exact video bitrate ceiling needed to fit within a strict upload limit (such as Discord's 25 MB or TikTok's 287 MB limit), after guaranteeing dedicated audio track bitrate:
Formula 4: Live Stream Bandwidth & Safety Headroom
Broadcast HeadroomStreaming over residential internet requires safety headroom to absorb ISP packet jitter, bufferbloat, and game multiplayer traffic:
For a 6,000 kbps video stream with 160 kbps audio and standard 25% safety headroom, the formula requires at least 8.21 Mbps of stable ISP upload speed.
Formula 5: CCTV Multi-Camera Retention & RAID Topology
Zero Headroom Double-CountingSurveillance capacity planning factors in camera count, native codec bitrates across 7 resolutions (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12 MP), and motion recording duty cycles:
In our calculator, hardware RAID parity overhead is calculated mathematically based strictly on array geometry:
- RAID 1 / RAID 10: Usable capacity = Total Disks / 2 (50% overhead).
- RAID 5: Usable capacity = (N - 1) × Disk Size. Requires 1 parity disk.
- RAID 6: Usable capacity = (N - 2) × Disk Size. Requires 2 parity disks.
The ~9% gap between decimal Terabytes (TB) and binary Tebibytes (TiB) is a decimal/binary unit standard difference (1 TB ≈ 0.909 TiB) (a plain fact, not an estimate), not filesystem overhead. It is handled cleanly via unit selection. We never apply an arbitrary duplicate percentage penalty on top of physical RAID disk count geometry.
Audit Questions or Formula Peer Review
Our mathematical formulas and encoder parameter generators are fully open for review. If you identify an edge case in our math or want to propose a refinement, submit an audit request via our Corrections Portal.