@Lumeinshin
Is 6mb really that big? Also, sure you saved space, but unless you really know what you're doing, you're destroying the quality too. How much tweaking do you do with the settings? How slow do you allow the encode to be to get small files? Do you test for compatibility? I could easily push 16 reference frames on all encodes, but wind up with clips that Android refuses to play.
@Lumeinshin
Clear enough. I'd say 240p is much to low of resolution, even for what it is. 360p-480p should be a minimum. Very slow is basically the only profile that is even worth using on x264 these days. And placebo, as the name suggests, is just burning CPU cycles for nothing. For animated clips I highly encourage you manually bump up the reference frames (from what I remember 9 should provide good compatibility even for 720p video). And crf 25 is... acceptable. I wouldn't watch a DVD reencoded at that quality, but for what you're using it for it's ok as long as the resolution is decent too.
Very smart use of mono audio though. You could lower the bitrate to 48kbps per channel for most things (so 48kbps if mono, 96kbps if stereo).
@Lumeinshin
In theory you can encode the video and audio separately, maybe with ffmpeg, and multiplex them with mkvmerge. This way you can tweak audio or video independently without redoing all the encode, but meme videos should be short enough that it doesn't matter).
I used to enjoy playing around with these things. Might start playing around again. Maybe make a script for myself. I post plenty of YouTube clips, and want them to be decent quality, but I usually don't go over a certain size, so I end up downloading a lower res version. But I suspect I could get better results if I download a 1080p and do the resizing myself.
6mb is kinda big, esp for what it is. depending on what country you're in, mobile data can be really hit or miss and every megabyte counts, im not going to wait for a 30 sec video of a cat dancing for 4 mins because i have E signal. lol
quality is something that varies from person to person but for reference to my thoughts, I am happy to have movies in my collection at 576p (dvd resolution) or 720p whichever is easier at the time. I would understand someone wanting to have high quality films, tho its not a huge priority for me. I have VHS rips of the shrek films lol, and theyre fine by me
encoding speed will be a factor in the quality, I tend to go for the 2nd slowest setting, my cpu is 6 core so it isnt super fast or super slow.
For meme videos, I think the file size is more important as far as a quality:ease of access / saving ratio goes. so long as its legible it doesnt have to be big, i basically cant notice a difference between the 6mb one and the 600kb one. there is a cat, he dances. nuff said
The preset I use depends on what it is, ofc if im doing the handbraking, the preset i use and tweaks will change depending on what i wanna show, though i know i am more forgiving of lower res/quality than most. (i used to watch 360p anime rips on youtube when i was younger lol) very crusty.
the 'discord tiny 5 mins' is perfectly fine for little memes with no text, then i change the encode speed to very slow
i hope that clears up where i stand on all that lol