I am using Minicoder to make mini encodes. What are best settings? screen shots of the GUI please!! I know nothing about audio & video bitrates. Which audio & video codecs are the best? I found out about changing the file size settings & quality, but don't know which quality to use.

Do not encode by bitrates for starters, it's a terrible amateur way of encoding. Although since you're wanting to do mini's anyhow, it likely doesn't matter anyways since you aren't wanting to encode quality releases to start with.

If all you care about is quantity then set the bitrate as low as possible.

I want to try & make good quality mini encodes

You'd probably have better luck by PMing Skylord as he's seen as one of the best when it comes to mini-encodes. Though, there is no such thing as quality minis. Quality has never been the reason for the existence of minis.

Also just a heads up in case you plan to share your encodes here: miniHD encodes are banned from being shared here.

yes I did plan to share my encodes here but they wouldn't miniHD because the original files aren't in HD they are DBNL's one piece episodes like spidey5443 did them from. I was going to continue from where he left off

I did PM spidey5443 & he said he was done with that he gave me permission to do that & he recommended Minicoder to me

Nope skylord does it a lot better with custom scripts and uses MeGUI with a few other stuff with it. Besides I think you have better luck with Handbrake...

MeGUI & Handbrake I tried both & couldn't figure out how to use either one & now I'm more confused than I was before.

Im using Handbrake,and its very easy,you just put your file,then choose resolution and Container (MKV or MP4),then go to Video Filters card and set Deinterlace: Slow,Denoise: Strong and Deblock: 5.After that you go to Video card and set codec you want,then choose Framerate and Bitrate and than click Start That's the setting for the best quality I found,but Im sure it's the best this program have.

Im using it for doing my TVRips,and the quality is very good

I did that in handbrake & it says encoding finished very quickly & the output file never came out did I forget to do something or what case Idk

If handbrake is too much for you (it really is simple once you learn the options). You could try Cyko or VideoCoder (they use handbrake code, but with different GUI). If that is too much, encoding is not for you.

Your best bet is to do a lot of learning so you understand encoding lingo, then use mediainfo to check the setting of videos you would like to imitate.

i'm minicoder user.
for me its not bad because its simple and easy to use even you are a amateur.

for 480p, i normally use 480kbps. so that i get around 80mb per episode.

if you make 400p, you can use either 400kbps or 480 kbps. its up to you. bcoz you decide what quality you want. if you think 400p is alright. so its ok. but for me, i like it in better quality even its slightly bigger size, then i will prefer 480kbps.

but if you do for 720p. the quality loss will become more pronounce bcoz this minicoder is not as like other software. usually i use 600kbps. but if you use 720kbps the quality is better. its all upon you how its want to be.

but this just setting for cartoon or animation. if for drama series, you set higher bitrate than usual. for example, 400p drama i set 700kbps.

thats all i can help. just try & error, mate. ^^