Author seems to think that they'll choose one file as the winner - that's not the case. Each video needs to be available not just in a few bitrates but also in different resolutions, codecs and profiles for broad compatibility with the various player apps many of which aren't updated any more.
While I haven't keep that abreast of video encoding tech I'm surprised people are saying animated shows will take less bandwidth. Typically video codecs use DCTs which are great at roughly approximating complex patterns but do a bad job at solid blocks of color and contrast. The result is ugly artifact especially on the edges. Perhaps things have greatly improved with h.264
"To do that, Netflix will transcode every one of their videos a bazillion times at different resolutions and at different bitrates, finally selecting the smallest one for a particular title that doesn’t suck visually."
While I haven't keep that abreast of video encoding tech I'm surprised people are saying animated shows will take less bandwidth. Typically video codecs use DCTs which are great at roughly approximating complex patterns but do a bad job at solid blocks of color and contrast. The result is ugly artifact especially on the edges. Perhaps things have greatly improved with h.264