diff --git a/HISTORY.md b/HISTORY.md
index 15cc2da0..6dd8a3b7 100644
--- a/HISTORY.md
+++ b/HISTORY.md
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ History
 
 - **Bugfix:** Wrong error message fixed when an invalid audio/video codec was selected. The message should rather say "unsupported codec" instead of talking about "sample format not supported.".
 - **Bugfix:** Issue [#162](https://github.com/nschlia/ffmpegfs/issues/162): If not present, add time stamps to the copied streams.
+- Changed quality from 34 to 40 for hardware encoded video streams to create slightly smaller files.
 
 **New in 2.16 (2024-06-10):**
 
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 66ff6148..63a3345d 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ Important changes in 2.17 (2024-08-XX):
   selected. The message should rather say "unsupported codec" instead of
   talking about "sample format not supported.".
 * Bugfix: Issue #162: If not present, add time stamps to the copied streams.
+* Changed quality from 34 to 40 for hardware encoded video streams to create
+  slightly smaller files.
 
 Important changes in 2.16 (2024-06-10):
 
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ae78c267..d0524888 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ To see what's been done so far, checkout the [windows](https://github.com/nschli
 
 - **Bugfix:** Wrong error message fixed when an invalid audio/video codec was selected. The message should rather say "unsupported codec" instead of talking about "sample format not supported.".
 - **Bugfix:** Issue [#162](https://github.com/nschlia/ffmpegfs/issues/162): If not present, add time stamps to the copied streams.
+- Changed quality from 34 to 40 for hardware encoded video streams to create slightly smaller files.
 
 **New in 2.16 (2024-06-10):**
 
diff --git a/src/ffmpeg_transcoder.cc b/src/ffmpeg_transcoder.cc
index 35ccfc0e..ce0b0e7d 100644
--- a/src/ffmpeg_transcoder.cc
+++ b/src/ffmpeg_transcoder.cc
@@ -2001,7 +2001,7 @@ int FFmpeg_Transcoder::add_stream(AVCodecID codec_id)
                 //    Logging::error(virtname(), "Could not set 'qp' for %1 output codec %2 (error '%3').", get_media_type_string(output_codec->type), get_codec_name(codec_id), ffmpeg_geterror(ret).c_str());
                 //    return ret;
                 //}
-               output_codec_ctx->global_quality = 34;
+                output_codec_ctx->global_quality = 40;
             }
 
             // Avoid mismatches for H264 and profile