dutchvr
Yeah you did kinda asked same thing in different ways though.
Re-encoded files are never better then original master file, with one exception, if master file are two different files, for example you went to LethalHardcore site and downloaded one file, and then compared the same scene but from our SLR remastering file, then our file will be better.
Our software encodes CBR and to make sure we don't loose any info on this step we set bitrate to 100mbps for most scenes. That's why our Originals files are so huge, but this way we ensure that no quality lost there (or a minimum possible quality loss). Then that master gets re-encoded to VBR with CFR (I don't remember exact number, 19 I think), which is visually lossless. Those files are also served for streaming in SLR app.
As per which file to download: if it would be me I'd download re-encoded h265 of highest resolution. I don't really see a good reason to pull 4-5 times bigger file, quality loss is negligible.
If you see a badly encoded file with pixelation and other encoding artifacts, most likely it's because we received a poor quality master from studio. They save on data (bitrate) and put up low-bitrate files on their website in order to reduce bills. If someone hosts on Amazon they can rack up huge bills very easily. Not so much storage, but traffic is expensive with them. We have our own cloud.
TLDR: Download h265 re-encoded, save the data, help trees, go vegan