It’s now almost a month since the newest Nexus smartphone, the LG Nexus 4 was released. While availability of the superphone is still scarce on Google Play with the 8GB version continuing to be elusive and getting sold out within a day of coming back in stock, and the 16GB version taking at least 6-7 weeks to ship, Google’s latest masterpiece continues to see unprecedented high demand.

While users who have been lucky enough to get the device have generally given extremely positive reviews about the performance and the build quality of the device, with some even going so far as to calling it the best Nexus yet, there have also been some not-so-appealing feedback about there being noise in videos captured using the Nexus 4 camera.

As you already know, the Nexus 4 is equipped with an 8 MP shooter which is capable of full 1080p video recording. The default bitrate for video recordings is set to 12mbps as you can see from the screenshot on the left above. XDA member mohit1234 has found a way to crank up the default bitrate for videos right up to a whopping 20mbps, indicated on the screenshot above to the right.

This not only helps get rid of the noise present in video recording but also brings about an improvement in the end quality of the videos, which is noticeable.

Keep in mind though, that while a higher bitrate would give you better quality of videos, it also comes with an increase in the size of the video. Given the Nexus 4 is limited to just internal storage, you may want to keep backing up all your videos from time to time to avoid running out of space.

So if you’re all ready to go ahead and tweak your device, we’ve put together a handy guide below which will help you beef up the video bitrate on your Nexus 4 to 20mbps. Read on to find out how.

How to Increase the Nexus 4 Video recording bitrate to 20mbps

  1. First of all, this tweak will only work with rooted devices, since we would be modifying a system file. If you haven’t rooted your nexus 4 yet, you can use this handy toolkit to unlock and root your device.
  2. Secondly, you would need a root file explorer to navigate to the system file and edit it. We would recommend the Solid Explorer App, however any file manager would do fine.
  3. Fire up Solid Explorer and navigate to the System Root directory by tapping the button on the top left of the screen, and then taping the tab Devices. Select the System Root option there and then select etc from the list of folders
  4. Now scroll down in the etc folder to find a file named media_profiles.xml. Tap on it once, and open it using Solid Explorer’s inbuilt text editor.
  5. Now with the file open in the text editor, scroll down till you see the section as in the screenshot below. Note that the wodth and height in the codec profile needs to be 1920 and 1080 respectively.
  6. Simply edit the bitrate value from the default 12000000 to 20000000.
  7. With the bitrate value changed, save the media_profiles.xml file
  8. Exit Solid Explorer and reboot your Nexus 4.
  9. Once it reboots, you will be able to capture noise-free 1080p videos at a bitrate of 20mbps. Kep in mind what I mentioned earlier about the file size though, and do not forget to back up your shot videos regularly to allow for enough space to get in more.

Go ahead and try this tweak and get the best out the already awesome Nexus 4 smartphone. To participate in the discussion, or to just thank mohit1234 for his contribution, head over to the source page by hitting the Via link below.

Via XDA