System, device, and method for improved image encoding that non-iteratively targets and achieves a visual-quality threshold and a compression efficiency threshold

A system comprising:

• one or more hardware processors that are configured to execute code,
• operably associated with one or more memory units that are configured to store code and data,
• wherein the one or more hardware processors are configured to perform a computerized process comprising:
• (a) receiving an input image intended for compression;
• (b) applying a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) Engine to predict what would be (i) compression ratio values and (ii) visual-quality score values, for a resulting compressed image that would be encoded or transcoded from said input image, if said input image would be compressed via a particular Image Encoder from a pool of available Image Encoders by using a particular Encoder Settings from a pool of Image Encoder Settings;
• (c) based on CNN-based predictions generated by the pre-trained CNN Engine, selecting a single combination of Image Encoder with Encoder Setting, and performing a single compression of said input image using said single combination of Image Encoder with Encoder Setting to generate an optimally compressed image.