Re: transcoding one video file with multiple settings

[Manuel Zauner] "in the last tutorial I've read (don't ask me where) I was told that 2-pass encoding favors encoding speed for quality by being as precise as possible concerning a predefined file size"

Different codec have different settings and with H.264, with so many implementation, it really depends. It doesn't sound like that tutorial is valid unless you're misinterpreting what they were recommending.