Question about H.264 encoding!

[Mauserman]

Hi!

I have a question about the ME function.

What is does the different choices (Diamond, Hexagon, Multi-Hexagon and Exhaustive) do, and when should you change that option? And does it change encoding time?

Thanks in advance!

[Case]

http://homepage.mac.com/major4/options.html
mencoder H.264 options:
[ME function] Sets the comparison function used for fullpixel motion estimation (affects quality). Available values: Diamond search (fastest), Hexagon search (default), Uneven multi-hexagon, Exhaustive search (very slow).

In my small test, the function changes encoding time as 78%, 100%, 105%, 411%. I need to do a different clip (more motion) for quality testing: all four looked excellent.

[Mauserman]

Thanks for your reply.

I encoded a movie the other day from a dvd source. I didn't change anything from the h.264 preset exept the bitrate wich i set to 1300 as an experiment. The result was quite blocky if i watched it in fullscreen in the dark parts of the movie, maybe a slight change of the ME function can make my movie less blocky?