H.264 woes (error message)

Hey all-

I'm running AE CS3 on a mac w/ osx 10.4.10, and Quicktime 7.2.

I'm trying to render out a movie in the H.264 format, but keep getting errors when i select "H.264" in the format window-

first error:

Writer Error

"Could not load any writer. Adobe Media Encoder will now exit."


second error:

"After Effects error: Writer Initialization Error!
(0 :: 9995)"


If i try to render out a quicktime with H.264 selected as the compression, i get this error:

"After Effects: For reliable output with H.264 compression, please choose it directly from the Output Module Format menu instead of via quicktime.
(44 :: 81)"


So either way, it doesn't work.


I realize this has to do with Quicktime's plugins not working.

any known specific workarounds, other than reinstalling Quicktime?