[davidvanleeuwen]

✨ What changes

Simple scenes can use fewer bits, while detailed scenes get more room within the existing bitrate limits. The H.264 ladder now targets visual quality instead of a fixed average bitrate. HEVC previews also regain CPU parallelism inside the media sandbox.

• Uses CRF 20 + faster for H.264, with the existing per-resolution VBV limits.
• Keeps every MP4 and HLS rendition, resolution, and output path; HLS bandwidth reflects packaged segments when available.
• Gives x265 an explicit CPU thread pool without expanding sandbox permissions. HEVC keeps CRF 24, medium, and tune=grain.
• Adds concise PR-writing guidance and a template for future contributions.

👀 Before / after

	Before	After
H.264 rate control	Average bitrate target	Quality target with a bitrate ceiling
H.264 CPU preset	veryfast	faster
HEVC parallelism	Automatic discovery can fail in the sandbox	Explicit pool using the available Go CPU budget
Preview quality settings	Existing CRF, preset and grain tuning	Preserved

Actual file size, quality, and encoding time depend on the source and CPU capacity.

Upgrading

Update the booster before the application. It continues to accept previous request versions. Existing published videos are not automatically re-encoded.