If you don't have a Mac made from 2017 onward, stick with H.264. H.265 or HEVC makes files even smaller - but requires hefty processing power to crunch the necessary numbers. Tried-and-true H.264 converts relatively quickly, and it can squeeze a high-def Blu-ray file onto a DVD's worth of space or less. The first two aren't worth considering with the latter two available. HandBrake offers a choice of four compression algorithms: MPEG-2 (oldest, relatively lousy), MPEG-4 (still old, not great), H.264 (old, faster, pretty good), and HEVC/H.265 (new, slower, even better). HEVC: Which compression algorithm is best? I'm stumbling through this without a lot of technical knowledge when it comes to video.Let's discuss a couple of the choices you'll need to weigh before you start putting your videos through the wringer. Sorry if this is a vague or simplistic question. How can I use it in a way that would be analogous to the standard RF settings (18, 20, 22) on the software encoder? I'd love to get some idea of how to use it, and what's actually changing when I move it around. I found another conversation on another forum from a couple months ago that pointed out that this slider was grayed out on Intel Macs, but I haven't found any clear discussion about how it actually functions. HandBrake's popular-level VideoToolbox documentation seems pretty thin, and doesn't reference this slider.

It's in the same place that the RF slider would be in if you were using the software encoder, but it's labeled CQ instead of RF, and the numbers on the slider seem to operate at a different scale.

When doing an MKV/h.264 encode using the VideoToolbox encoder and selecting Constant Quality, there's a slider available that wasn't available on earlier versions on Intel-powered Macs (or, as far as I can remember, the Windows version of Handbrake, but I could be mistaken there).

I've been trying out the version of Handbrake that's built for native compatibility with Apple's M1 SoC.

Handbrake video mac