FFMPEG options differences between two videos - ffmpeg

Question

So I'm working with a video build out of pngs. Making a video hasn't been too hard thanks to ffmpeg however most of the videos I've made work great playing forward and are extremely choppy playing backwards.
Using a program named MPEG Streamclip plus Handbrake I managed to convert my video to one that plays great forward and backward. But now I can't figure out how to pass in the right options to ffmpeg to replicate this video.
Using ffprobe I have some outputs of the good and bad video. What options am I missing?
Bad Video:
$ ffprobe tea_ffmpeg.mov
ffprobe version 3.0 Copyright (c) 2007-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with Apple LLVM version 7.0.2 (clang-700.1.81)
configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/3.0 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-hardcoded-tables --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-opencl --enable-libx264 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libxvid --enable-vda
libavutil 55. 17.103 / 55. 17.103
libavcodec 57. 24.102 / 57. 24.102
libavformat 57. 25.100 / 57. 25.100
libavdevice 57. 0.101 / 57. 0.101
libavfilter 6. 31.100 / 6. 31.100
libavresample 3. 0. 0 / 3. 0. 0
libswscale 4. 0.100 / 4. 0.100
libswresample 2. 0.101 / 2. 0.101
libpostproc 54. 0.100 / 54. 0.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'tea_ffmpeg.mov':
Metadata:
major_brand : qt
minor_version : 512
compatible_brands: qt
encoder : Lavf57.25.100
Duration: 00:00:08.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1140 kb/s
Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 676x450 [SAR 675:676 DAR 3:2], 1138 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 12800 tbn, 50 tbc (default)
Metadata:
handler_name : DataHandler
encoder : Lavc57.24.102 libx264
Good Video:
$ ffprobe test.mov
ffprobe version 3.0 Copyright (c) 2007-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with Apple LLVM version 7.0.2 (clang-700.1.81)
configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/3.0 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-hardcoded-tables --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-opencl --enable-libx264 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libxvid --enable-vda
libavutil 55. 17.103 / 55. 17.103
libavcodec 57. 24.102 / 57. 24.102
libavformat 57. 25.100 / 57. 25.100
libavdevice 57. 0.101 / 57. 0.101
libavfilter 6. 31.100 / 6. 31.100
libavresample 3. 0. 0 / 3. 0. 0
libswscale 4. 0.100 / 4. 0.100
libswresample 2. 0.101 / 2. 0.101
libpostproc 54. 0.100 / 54. 0.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'test.mov':
Metadata:
major_brand : qt
minor_version : 537199360
compatible_brands: qt
creation_time : 2016-03-09 15:16:37
Duration: 00:00:08.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2650 kb/s
Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, smpte170m/smpte170m/bt709), 674x450, 2646 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25k tbn, 50k tbc (default)
Metadata:
creation_time : 2016-03-09 15:16:47
handler_name : Apple Alias Data Handler
encoder : H.264
FFMPEG Command so far:
ffmpeg -y -i 'pngs/tea-%03d.png' -vf scale=674:-2 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 25 tea_ffmpeg.mov
I understand mov vs mp4 should just be a container spec, but mov was the first I got working. I'm more than happy to use mp4.

Answer 1

The main thing that stands out is the profile. So,
ffmpeg -y -i 'pngs/tea-%03d.png' -vf scale=674:-2 -vcodec libx264 -profile:v main -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 25 tea_ffmpeg.mov
To be safer, you can use baseline profile and small GOP sizes (at some cost to file size)
ffmpeg -y -i 'pngs/tea-%03d.png' -vf scale=674:-2 -vcodec libx264 -profile:v baseline -g 12 -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 25 tea_ffmpeg.mov