Apparently in menu the button "x264v preset and tuning selection" (showing "ultrafast") is initially ignored but gets set when video output is not "automatic" anymore, and this setting stays active even after switching back. That's what ruins transcoding. The solution is to manually select "slow".
(The downside of the original hardware renderer on my Linux Mint (AMD Ryzen 2400G APU with updated amdgpu drivers from PPA) is that the effects and filters menu does not work. Enabling video adjustments (brightness, contrast etc.) causes black picture. So I had to try others.)
Settings in Linux are stored here:
~/.config/vlc
It turned out that only the parameter "sout-x264-preset=" is unset after a fresh install (and so video conversion looks good because it behaves like "slow"), but after selecting any other video renderer, it sets itself to "ultrafast" (like written on the button).
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differences in vlcrc after switching back and forward:
co_windler@Juchhe:~/Dokumente/Arbeit/Config (Juchhe)/vlc$ diff -y --suppress-common-lines vlcrc_Automatisch vlcrc_VDPAU-Ausgabe
#sout-x264-preset= | sout-x264-preset=ultrafast
#sout-x264-tune= | sout-x264-tune=film
#vout= | vout=vdpau_display
co_windler@Juchhe:~/Dokumente/Arbeit/Config (Juchhe)/vlc$ diff -y --suppress-common-lines vlcrc_Automatisch vlcrc_wiederAutomatisch
#sout-x264-preset= | sout-x264-preset=ultrafast
#sout-x264-tune= | sout-x264-tune=film
#vout= | vout=any
This bug may seem minor, but this behaviour is extremely confusing to beginners, because the only obvious solution after switching any video output/decoding mode seems to click "Reset Preferences", which will delete ALL user settings (including custom convert mode entries). Thus you must backup at least your vlc-qt-interface.conf (or vlc-qt-interface.ini in Windows) which contains your GUI settings and convert mode. I recommend to also backup vlcrc which seems to store the selected renderer type and all video/audio finetuning.
Please fix this by making the conversion speed button "x264v preset and tuning selection" always reflect the actual setting of parameter "sout-x264-preset=" and set its default to "slow" (or what ever the internal unset behaviour is) instead of "ultrafast", which converts low resolution videos (e.g. 240p at 130kb/s) way too blocky. The bug seems old and exists at least in several VLC 3 versions.
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I CYBERYOGI Christian Oliver(=CO=) Windler I
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