How to Record Lossless Video in OBS Studio

This guide explains how to configure OBS Studio to capture mathematically lossless video, ensuring maximum visual fidelity for high-end post-production, professional editing, and color grading. By adjusting your output, encoder, and color space settings, you will eliminate compression artifacts and preserve every pixel of your source footage.

Step 1: Set Output Mode to Advanced

To unlock the precise configuration settings required for lossless recording, you must bypass the simplified settings menu.

  1. Open OBS Studio and click Settings in the bottom-right corner.
  2. Select the Output tab from the left-hand menu.
  3. At the top of the window, change the Output Mode dropdown from Simple to Advanced.
  4. Click on the Recording tab.

Step 2: Configure the Recording Tab

In this section, you will choose the container and encoder that support lossless capture.

  1. Type: Set this to Standard.
  2. Recording Format: Select MOV or MKV. MOV is highly compatible with professional non-linear editors (NLEs) like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro. If you choose MKV to protect against crashes, you can automatically remux it to MP4/MOV later via File > Remux Recordings.
  3. Video Encoder: Select a hardware encoder for optimal performance, such as NVIDIA NVENC H.264 (New), AMD HW H.264, or QuickSync H.264. If hardware encoders are unavailable, choose x264 (CPU).
  4. Audio Encoder: Set this to PCM (32-bit Float) or PCM (24-bit) for uncompressed, lossless audio.

Step 3: Enable Lossless Rate Control

The rate control tells the encoder how to distribute data. For lossless quality, you must disable compression limits.

  1. Set the Rate Control dropdown to Lossless.
  2. If you are using a custom encoder configuration where “Lossless” is not an option, select CQP (Constant QP) and set the CQ Level to 0. A value of 0 represents mathematically lossless compression.
  3. Set Keyframe Interval to 2 s (or 0 for auto).
  4. Set the Preset to Quality or Max Quality.

Step 4: Adjust Advanced Color Settings

Standard video uses chroma subsampling (usually 4:2:0) to save bandwidth, which discards color information. For high-end post-production, you should configure OBS to record full color data.

  1. Navigate to the Advanced tab in the left-hand menu of the Settings window.
  2. Locate the Video section.
  3. Color Format: Change this from NV12 to I444 (for 4:4:4 chroma subsampling) or RGB (for uncompressed RGB color). Note that RGB and I444 require significantly more processing power and storage space.
  4. Color Space: Set this to Rec. 709 (standard HD) or Rec. 2100 (PQ/HLG) if you are workflow-targeting HDR.
  5. Color Range: Set this to Full to capture the entire spectrum of whites and blacks.

Click Apply and then OK to save your settings. Your OBS Studio is now fully configured to capture lossless video files ready for professional post-production. Be prepared for exceptionally large file sizes, and ensure your storage drive has fast write speeds to handle the massive data rate.