Is it good to encode videos with higher bitrates than the source?

[onlinegft22]

Im kinda new to handbrake. I've videos in hevc & some avc with 5 ref frames, Since my Tv usb player doesnt support those formats im planning to encode those videos via average bitrate in handbrake. I'd like to ask if it is ideal to encode those videos with higher bitrate than the source to get the same quality? TIA Guys.

[sneaker]

Yes, kinda. The higher the bitrate the lower the quality loss.

[Cornucopia]

RULE: You can never get better than the original (without new "original" work). So the loss will be less, and may be unnoticeable, but it will be loss, regardless. That's why they call HEVC and AVC "lossy" codecs.

Note:
There is a special case where they can run in lossless mode, but not only are the files much larger, but you'll find that not nearly as many apps are compatible with them - have to be designed specifically to work with them. That's why I've been saying for a while that you cannot just refer to HEVC or AVC, etc. as a single format. It's a family of formats, with Tiers, Levels & Profiles. Compatibility in apps is targeted towards specific T/L/P categories, almost NO apps are compatible with all of them.

Scott