Not trying to pile on, but Daiz's comment...
> re-encoding with Beamr could potentially make the streaming experience worse due to the fact that Beamr does not seem to set any VBV options[2] for their encodes
...is crucial if you're sharing video online. As a video delivery network (VDN), we run into badly encoded streams all the time. Clients can play the files locally, but after uploading to us the files don't stream or stream badly when trying to play online. Daiz's comment mentions one of the more subtle causes of such problems.
If you are streaming video to end users, which is what most people here on HN are doing with video, keep in mind that users' bandwidths are generally constant. Someone with a 756kbps DSL line cannot magically download at 3 mbps during the explosive parts of your video.
Most encoding guides you find around with x264 settings are for your own content on your own computer, and neglect the options necessary to ensure your video doesn't use up bits faster than your pipe can refill them. Most pro encoding tools miss these settings as well.
In the old days (Windows Media) for the best streaming video quality, you could use constant bit rate (CBR) but define a long window for the CBR measurement, say, 15 seconds. That would give you variable bitrate from second to second (say, a scene change), but limit your bitrate to the CBR over any given 15 second window.
x264 has options that allow the same thing, essentially defining how many bits you need to have in reserve to encode complex parts from, and what constant rate can refill the reserve. For a good streaming experience, this is more important than "frame by frame quality". Casual users might not notice a 10% difference in picture quality, but everyone notices if the stream pauses.
Here's an explanation or two:
http://codesequoia.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/what-are-cbr-vbv...
http://aviadr1.blogspot.com/2010/12/vbv-for-dummies.html
See link [2] in parent comment for the VBV settings you need.
All this said, I can see a use case for Beamr for utterly non technical users that want to archive their own video from Bluray or DVD or broadcast quality digital sources. Looks like this tool can approximate a reasonable guess at perceptual quality with "zero config". As others have said here, I personally prefer to do that by having a multicore encoder and let x264 apply as much look ahead and calculation as it can to take advantage of motion calculation and perceptual quality. Play around with those settings till you hit an encoding time that you're happy with, then with those set, find the CRF that looks good to you, and you're pretty much set from then on. Just encode future videos to that CRF and you'll be happy with the quality -- x264 will pick unique bit rates tuned for each video that give you the PQ you want.
