All I'm trying to do is restrict this process to a single core, assuming there won't be a reduction in quality beyond what I could expect while multi-threading, but for some reason it's still using 100% of my CPU. Here is my command:
for %f IN (*.mkv) DO start /b /low /wait ffmpeg -i "%f" -threads 1 -c:v libx265 -crf 30 -preset superfast -c:a copy ../%~nf.mkv
-x265-params pools=1
instead, but I can't tell if ultimately that is really what you want.