First video on Youtube, I need workflow and format advice

[Arty84]

First of all thank you in advance for your time, I feel I have learned a lot from you and your answers.

I started recording short video blog entries. I have bought a Samsung HMX-H200 camcorder.
The quality of the video when seen on an LCD television is great. I record the audio separately, with
a Zoom H4.

The Samsung H200 outputs mp4, at 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720 or 720 x 480.
For the first shoots I used 1280x720. (Should I shoot directly 720x480?).

Two and a half minute fills 190 mb.

I have produced one videoclip for youtube and I am not very satisfied by the video quality.
Probably this is a workflow issue. Help me.

These are the steps I took:

- resized the video in Avidemux, from 1280x720 to 720x404. This are strange figures, I think. Suggestions?
Frame rate was changed as well from 50 to 25. Was it a good idea? Isn't 50 fps overkill for Youtube?

- I saved the output file as a mp4 (compressed with constant quantizer quality 1) and edited this in Sony Vegas (trial)

- I added credits and sound, muted the original audio and inserted the wav from the Zoom H4

- I rendered. Here started my problems as well. Wmv at best quality (HD), gave a weird 18 mb file. Mpeg2, gave about 200 mb, not very nice quality. Avi format would produce a huge file, like 5 Gb, for 2.30 minutes of footage.

So, any tips? Is Avidemux or Super inferior for conversion? Now I shelled out for the camcorder, I am willing to invest in software as well, 50-100 bucks range.

Thanks a lot in advance

[hech54]

720x480 is overkill for YouTube...so start there.
Don't mess with framerate.
Output to MP4/H264 AFTER all of your editing is done.
I do all of my YouTube edits and uploads with free software....don't spend money until you know what you are doing.
You can save your creations FOR YOURSELF as high-quality....but uploading that you YouTube is a waste of time.

[smartel]

i once uploaded lots of clips and when finished YT changed it's resolution .. YT recommends keeping them untouched

[Arty84]

720x480 is overkill for YouTube...so start there.
Don't mess with framerate.
Output to MP4/H264 AFTER all of your editing is done.
I do all of my YouTube edits and uploads with free software....don't spend money until you know what you are doing.
You can save your creations FOR YOURSELF as high-quality....but uploading that you YouTube is a waste of time.

Thanks.

Problem with the frame rate was that I was having audio and sync problems. Maybe the laptop isn't beefy enough.
I figured out that going 25 would make things easier. It did fix the audio issues (voice smurfing and the alike).

What free software do you use for your editing needs? I need to add external audio files, music, credits, so
Windows Movie Maker isn't gonna cut it.