Yeah i checked it out my source was a douche, it uses the MainConcept technology to encode MPEG-4 ISO/AVC which did have non-compliency problems in the past but has been long fixed and is now nice and good. Failing to find a "better" encoder - by that I mean one can encode higher quality than others, speed aint an issue. In my own tests, I used the exact same options in the TMPGEnc/MainConcept encoder and the x264 one, but MainConcept encode seemed to handle super-high motion/action better. I think that might be because TMPGEnc has better 'scene change detection' though and that's not a codec thing its the VME technology in TMPGEnc that handles that but x264 is definately better than every other commercial AVC encoder I've tried! Its actually a little faster than what im using :) but quality is more important to me.

OK, i will try Reference frames to 3 and compare :) thanks

Well I want the HIGHEST quality and have ZERO care about encoding speed so if anyone has any tips on how to "encode slower" let me know! I am using 2-pass VBR, and my "Medium Quality" profile is 1024kbps average and 2048kbps max, Motion Search Range I have changed from 64 to 256 [good?]

Also I know that it REALLY depends on the source or what is actually 'in' the video, as to the "best" settings to use... but I'm just trying to get a rough idea here. Will try some more personal tests and comparisons tonight. Thanks guys :)

EDIT: I know I said HIGHEST quality but space is also important to me as I only have a 2GB stick and don't have a massive harddisk either [320GB] hence why i decided to use H.264 instead of DivX - to get higher quality at lower bitrates ;)

P.S. Assassinator, your Sig is very cool! What's that from? I don't know much anime :)