Hello @gr8dealcom6392! I can certainly help you craft a custom profile for your RTX 3060.
Since your GPU supports H.265 (HEVC) hardware encoding but not AV1, and you are looking for smaller file sizes with good quality at 720p/1080p, using the hevc_nvenc encoder (via FFmpeg) is your best bet for speed and efficiency.
You can add this snippet to your profiles.conf file. This profile is optimized for your hardware, includes subtitle/caption embedding, and uses a variable bitrate (VBR) to keep file sizes down while maintaining quality:
-cq 28: This is the “Constant Quality” setting. If you find the files are still too large, increase this number (e.g., to 30 or 32). If the quality is too low, decrease it (e.g., to 24).
-pix_fmt p010le: This enables 10-bit encoding, which significantly reduces “banding” artifacts in shadows and gradients, often resulting in better quality at smaller sizes.
-acodec copy: Since you’re coming from HDHomeRun .ts files, this will keep your original audio (AC3) without losing quality or wasting CPU time re-encoding it.
To use this:
Open your profiles.conf (usually in the MCEBuddy installation folder).
Paste the code above at the bottom.
Restart MCEBuddy.
Select “HEVC MKV NVIDIA - High Quality” from the Profile dropdown in your Conversion Task.
Give that a try and let us know if the file sizes are more in line with what you remember!