I would put "Key Frames" at 1 and never touch it again.
I had (and many others) got artifacts sometimes with exporting in h264/h265 (every person who had this problem and who changed to 1 fixed it for them). And when you notice them, it's always too late, it can be on one frame, or two, in the middle of a 20-50 mins video.
I would export in h265 with Main10 (10 bits, even if the source is 8 bits, better compression, etc.)
That would be if you want to archive the videos locally without them taking up too much space.
But Youtube accepts DNxHR, ProRes, Cineform, etc... :
https://support.google.com/youtube/trou ... 8402?hl=enSo if you don't want to compromise and don't want to spend too much time in the settings, just export a DNxHR HQX10 file, and upload it to youtube. But of course, you need a good upload speed lol.
And like someone said, Youtube will re-encode them anyway, they make their "own" master so it's better to upload a very good quality video. They will generate the different streamed version from it.
(TIP : anyone can request their data from youtube, and when you do, you'll get these mp4 "master" for each video, but each file can be very large, I know, I tested it... it's a tip for those who uploaded videos and don't have any good quality copy locally. It's called Google Takeout : https://takeout.google.com/. Never download from the youtube studio page, the quality is pure garbage)And last thing, even if your timeline is 1080p, export in 4k (if your computer can handle it). Because youtube uses the AV01 coded for everything below 1440p (I think,... below 4k for sure, you can see it if you right click on the youtube player > Stats for Nerds - to see the info about what's streamed).
VP09 for the 4k. And the 1080p version you will be able to select in the youtube player will have a better quality.
I'm not sure if it's the frame-rate that triggers the passage to the VP09 codec, or the resolution. Anyway, it works. Of course, the 4k version will just be a basic upscale of the 1080p video, but who cares, at least the 1080p version will look better.