H264 Encodes Looking Very Weird

[Soopafresh]

I've been testing some H264 encoders, from the free ones to a few commercial products. I must be doing something wrong, because all of the encodes have an "oil pastel" quality to them. This seems to occur more during motion scenes, but nothing looks right. Here's the Gspot info and a few examples.



A still frame:



A frame with movement:

[bugster]

I agree, looks pretty wierd. Wasn't H264 designed for very low bitrates? If so, then maybe that is how it acheives it without significan macro blocking, by lots of blurring.

[junkmalle]

You are using too low a bitrate or too high a Quantization value.

[Soopafresh]

Thanks for the tip, Junkmalle. I'll try some changes in both parameters.