n00b: optimizing HD video shot w/Canon HV30 for low file size and FLVs

[hierodule]

I'm certain these questions have been asked a billion times in a trillion different forums, but my search-Fu is weak, and haven't been able to find info that touches my particular questions. If I posted this in the wrong forum, feel free to move it to the appropriate one. I've placed my system specs in my profile's "Computer Details."

1) How to compress HD Video (or rather, how do some people manage to get almost 30mins of HD video in under 300MB)
I got a Canon VIXIA HV30 yesterday and, to test it, I shot my dogs in the backyard for around 2 minutes (using the HDV 30p setting), and transferred the video using Premiere Elements. I'm confident I can edit it without problem even if I don't have a dual-core processor. So far so good.

When I tried to save the video with the HD 720p 30 preset in Premiere Elements, it said the final 2 minute MPEG video would be 214MB.

What confuses me is that I've seen .MKV anime episodes (fansubs) of around 20-25 minutes in 1280x720 h264 format with under 300MB of file size. How can I achieve such compression/high quality with my shot videos?


2) FLV Videos
Anyone can point me to one or more decent guides on how to achieve high-quality/small size FLV videos. I used the same video to create an FLV in Premiere Elements with its FLV 720x480 Sorenson preset, and the resulting FLV left much to be desired. I wasn't expecting a crystal-sharp video, but at least something "YouTube-quality." However, the end product was a pixelated, ugly mess which would look bad even in YouTube.

If I need to add more details to either question let me know. Thanks for reading.

Ed

[edDV]

One observation, you can't compare animation frames to live video particularly anime where large portions of the frame are stationary and movement happenes infrequently. Camcorder video has many pixels in motion (unless the camera is locked down and the set is fixed) plus noise that is processed as motion.

Video requires much higher bit rate for similar quality.

[hierodule]

One observation, you can't compare animation frames to live video particularly anime where large portions of the frame are stationary and movement happenes infrequently.

Camcorder video has many pixels in motion (unless the camera is locked down and the set is fixed) plus noise that is processed as motion.

Hmm, that was what I was kind of fearing: that it was unrealistic of me to compare animation to live action.

Oh well, I guess that takes care of the first question.