I did say that we are NOT experts and any of the geeky stuff, we produce movies... all info I got isbakerboy, special thanks for the "experience" info. I applaud your setting up a A/B test. Just off the top of my inexperienced head, I suspect "diminishing returns" the better your source material is. And I was wondering what the finished file size would be, so thank you for providing that as well.
Out of curiosity
1) what resolution was your original file? Was it 1920x1080? 1280x720?
2) What was the target resolution?
3) How long did it take for your hardware to process the file?
4) Also, what are your hardware specs?
The original was 720 x 404 , the end was 1280 x 720 if that makes any sense.
The conversion took almost 3 hours.
Mac processor Apple M2 16 GIGs OS Ventura