My friend wanted help with his encode of Rurouni Kenshin and asked for a sample episode. Encoded using MeGUI First thing I did was crop and resize the video crop(14, 8, -14, -4) LanczosResize(640,480) # Lanczos (Sharp) This removed any pillarboxing and got me a correct aspect ratio of 4:3 only the sides needed to be cropped but I had to crop the top and bottom to get a 4:3 aspect ratio. Because the FPS was a constant 29.970 and not variable I straight deinterlaced Set to Interlaced, bottom field first, Yadif Yadif(order=0) Filters used BiFrost(interlaced=true) to remove rainbowing VMToon (strength=24, thinning=12, sharpen=false) to darken lines and bring out background detail and to offset detail loss due to compression LimitedSharpenFaster() to offset any blurriness due to compression Tweak(sat=1.2) to offset any color loss due to compression All the detail loss and blockiness in your first video was because you used bad encoding settings just copy settings provided below and your vid will improve dramatically also stop using handbrake. Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : High 10@L3.1 Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, ReFrames : 8 frames Codec ID : V\_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 24mn 1s Bit rate : 1 753 Kbps Width : 640 pixels Height : 480 pixels Display aspect ratio : 4:3 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 29.970 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 10 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel\*Frame) : 0.190 Stream size : 301 MiB (80%) Title : Rurouni Kenshin 01 Writing library : x264 core 138 r2358 9e941d1 Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=11 / psy=1 / psy\_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed\_ref=1 / me\_range=24 / chroma\_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast\_pskip=0 / chroma\_qp\_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead\_threads=1 / sliced\_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray\_compat=0 / constrained\_intra=0 / bframes=5 / b\_pyramid=2 / b\_adapt=2 / b\_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open\_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=300 / keyint\_min=29 / scenecut=40 / intra\_refresh=0 / rc\_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=81 / qpstep=4 / vbv\_maxrate=17500 / vbv\_bufsize=17500 / crf\_max=0.0 / nal\_hrd=none / ip\_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00 Language : English Default : Yes Forced : No Audio [\#1](//www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=1) ID : 2 Format : AC-3 Format/Info : Audio Coding 3 Mode extension : CM (complete main) Format settings, Endianness : Big Codec ID : A\_AC3 Duration : 24mn 1s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 192 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel positions : Front: L R Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Bit depth : 16 bits Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 33.0 MiB (9%) Title : English Language : English Default : Yes Forced : No Audio [\#2](//www.nyaa.se/?page=view&tid=2) ID : 3 Format : AC-3 Format/Info : Audio Coding 3 Mode extension : CM (complete main) Format settings, Endianness : Big Codec ID : A\_AC3 Duration : 24mn 1s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 192 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel positions : Front: L R Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Bit depth : 16 bits Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 33.0 MiB (9%) Title : Japanese Language : Japanese Default : No Forced : No Text ID : 4 Format : ASS Codec ID : S\_TEXT/ASS Codec ID/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha Compression mode : Lossless Title : English Language : English Default : No Forced : No Menu 00:00:00.066 : Chapter 01 Opening Theme