GOP of 12/15 frames for anime/cartoons? Why?
 

Kwag recommended to set the GOP to 15 for NTSC cartoon sources in his "Lastest Scripts" thread.

I tried that but the default max # of GOP frames gave me a higher CQ. I couldn't tell the difference in quality between the two. So is there a reason why I have to lower the setting?

Only for anime type cartoons, where you have very sharp edges, is where you have better quality by using a shorter GOP.
If you are encoding new cartoons, computer animated, then use the same GOP as if you were encoding a movie.

-kwag