A follow up here.
The "-crf 0" setting for ffmpeg has to be used to insure the highest
image quality when converting from one format (animated gif) to another
Mastroka .mkv.
The video size dropped to about 1/2 the original animated gif size.
The ffmpeg defaults don't seem to handle the 800x800 animated gif files
very well, much image degradation is visible, when doing the conversion
to mp4 format.
ffmpeg does a better job on the 1000x1000 pixel animated gif files for
some reason.
But forcing the video quality with the crf option = 0, is the correct
way to preserve image quality.
Randall
P.S. I happen to know that the true image quality from GOES-16 and
GOES-18 and now GOES-19 far surpasses what is on the standard image
servers. In fact, the GLM lightning mapper is receiving 500 images/sec..
but very few individuals have computing resources capable of handling
this requirement.
For some reason the meso-loop images are higher quality then the
standard ones on the NOAA webpage.
