Troubleshooting: Exported clips are super pixelated on Instagram Reels.

I've been helping a team optimize their video pipeline for Reels, and we hit this exact issue. The pixelation on Instagram, especially after Opus Clip's export, is a classic encoding mismatch. Instagram is particularly finicky about its video specs.

The root cause is usually one of two things:
1. **Bitrate Starvation:** Opus Clip's default export settings might be optimized for file size, not for Instagram's re-encoding.
2. **Resolution/FPS Mismatch:** Exporting at a non-standard resolution or frame rate forces Instagram's compressor to work overtime, degrading quality.

Here's the battle-tested workflow we settled on. It adds one step but guarantees quality:

1. **Export from Opus Clip** at the highest quality possible (e.g., 1080p, 60fps). This gives you a high-bitrate master.
2. **Re-encode locally** using `ffmpeg` to match Instagram's preferred specs before uploading. This pre-encoding often survives Instagram's processing better.

A sample `ffmpeg` command we use as a final processing step:
```bash
ffmpeg -i opus_export.mp4
-c:v libx264
-preset slow
-crf 18
-maxrate 10M
-bufsize 20M
-pix_fmt yuv420p
-vf "scale=1080:1920:flags=lanczos"
-c:a aac
-b:a 192k
-r 30
final_for_instagram.mp4
```
Key flags:
* `-crf 18`: High visual quality (lower = better, 18-23 is a good range).
* `-maxrate 10M -bufsize 20M`: Applies a variable bitrate with a high ceiling.
* `-r 30`: Forces 30fps, which is a Reels sweet spot.
* `scale=1080:1920`: Ensures exact 9:16 vertical format.

If you're not command-line inclined, using a tool like HandBrake with similar high-bitrate H.264 settings can achieve the same result. The principle is to feed Instagram a file that's already compressed to its preferred standards, so it doesn't apply its own heavy-handed compression.

Has anyone else found specific Opus Clip export settings that work well directly, or are you using a similar two-step encode process?