[Feature] Allow configuring video bitrate for Playwright CLI recordings #42375

What's going on?

Playwright video recordings currently use a fixed 1 Mbps VP8 bitrate. At 1280×800, this often produces visibly pixelated UI recordings, especially during scrolling, animations, and other motion. I use Playwright CLI to record issue reproductions and before-and-after comparisons. These recordings need to keep text and UI details readable.

Could video-start accept a bitrate in bits per second and pass it through to page.screencast.start()?

playwright-cli video-start issue.webm --size=1280x800 --bitrate=8000000

The bundled video-recording skill could use 8 Mbps for user-facing recordings while preserving the existing 1 Mbps default when no bitrate is specified.

I’m happy to submit a PR for this.

Version

@playwright/cli 0.1.18 (Playwright 1.63.0-alpha-2026-08-05)