Current optimal Bitrates for Vimeo and YouTube?
 

I know, I know. There are lots of threads on bitrate here. I'm just wondering if there is a consensus on optimal bitrate for VHS to H.264 for Vimeo or YouTube uploading? (I like Vimeo, because it lets my original file live on their server. The downside being I only get 5 GB per week of upload space)

For 480p standard definition video, YouTube currently recommends 2.5 Mbps for standard frame rate and 4 Mbps for high framerate videos. Vimeo currently recommends 2-5 Mbps.

On this forum, the most common advice I've read is 5.5 Mbps and if you do 2-pass encoding, use 8 Mbps as the max bitrate.

Does going any higher than that on VHS video help in any way?

Does anyone have any alternative feelings on this?

I currently use Totalcode studio for encoding, unless I am editing on Adobe Premiere, then I just use its encoder for outputting these files.