Quicktime Pro - Export Codecs, Quality vs File Size

Hey - I have been playing with Quicktime Pro (best $30 I ever spent) and wanted to ask what quality settings people generally use for their outputs.

I can output to many things, but MP4, H.264 and DivX seem to be the best options. I have a 45MB 1:20 avi file (320*200) that I have been experimenting with.

MP4 @ 256 kbps shows loads of artifacting, but is a cool 3MB
MP4 @ 512 kbps is better but not as good as the original, that's 6MB
MP4 @ 1024 kbps is almost identicial to the original, coming in at 11MB

The MP4 decodes take about 10 seconds.

h.264 @ 512 kbps is far noticeably better than the MP4 quality, but worse than the original AVI. I was suprised by this. at 700kbps it's as good. But decoding (exporting) takes about a minute and a half.

The DivX decode take about a minute and @ 550kbps, looks about the same as the MP4, i.e. worse than h.264 quality for the same bit rate.

Obviously these are subjective!

In any case, I can reduce the file size from 45MB to around 12MB with very little, if any loss in quality. I'm interested in other people's settings for home movie clips.

Thanks for giving all of your results with the amount of time, file size and your opinions on video quality.

I usually use H.264 and since it takes longer for long items I just export over night. I use a Plextor TV tuner that I have set to record in DivX for easiest transfer of files so that they can be played on all of my systems