Variable bitrate (
VBR), or less commonly
variable bit rate, is a term used in
telecommunications and
computing that relates to the
bitrate used in sound or video encoding. As opposed to
constant bitrate (CBR), VBR files vary the amount of output
data per time segment. VBR allows a higher bitrate (and therefore more storage space) to be allocated to the more complex segments of media files while less space is allocated to less complex segments. The average of these rates is calculated to produce an
average bitrate for the file that will represent its overall
sound quality.