There are many claims that Handbrake is one of the best encoding tools. I wanted to test this myself and see if it's worth the extra step of outputting to ProRes first and then encoding in Handbrake.
The test is over simplified as it only uses one clip. Leaves were chosen as they are difficult to encode due to the amount changing in the frame at all times. The clips were encoded at a constant bitrate (CBR) to allow the closest match between settings in Handbrake and AME.
I hope that the YouTube encode allows you to see the differences as clearly as I could. I welcome any comments on this subject as it is highly dependent on the clips used.
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