Best Cross Platform Web Settings Using A Mac?

[flickstah]

Before you get all mad at me for asking an old question please let me appologize but I have a more specific question than the general nature of the subject implies.

I have captured video from a panasonic cam using miniDV.

My video is now in .dv format from final cut using compressor to export.

My question is this:

Which format settings will give me the absolute best quality for 640x480 video, about 10-15 min. in length?

I'm looking for about 200-500mb size range with as little artifacting as possible.

I've tried using ffmpegx in many different divx and xvid formats but the video keeps stopping, becoming choppy and the artifacting is pretty bad even using b frames and 2 pass encoding. I am trying to us divx/xvid because it seems to be the best I've seen using on both windows media on a pc and quicktime on a mac.

I realize divx or xvid require a download for the user but it's the best I've seen so far.

If there is a format that is more clear, smaller size or some how better that I should know about please let me know.

Please give me a breakdown of what works best for you converting DV to a GOOD high quality 640x480 cross platform format.

Thanks in advance!

[celtic_druid]

x264 would give you better quality per MB, but at that size XviD or libavcodec should look excellent.

x264 does not support interlacing, so you must deinterlace before encoding.