Re: where can I learn about keeping compression settings within standards?

good to know the advanced profile is only 12. But I do have 12. I haven't been using the advanced profile either.

I agree, 500 is a bit low for anything moving at a decent speed on 1280x720, but I'm already reducing their originals from 1920x1080, so any further and they'll notice it.

Unfortunately it's pretty impossible to dummy proof. One guy will open it in VLC, the next guy will double click to open it and only has the default, and another might try and open it on a Mac and doesn't know anything other than quicktime exists. Well that's rare in the corporate world so I chose to ignore the last one. ;) If you're in a corporation and insist on using a Mac then you better learn how to convert things for compatibility on your own right?

And the reason I use media encoder is to save time and space. You can render premiere and afterEffects file without having to render uncompressed first, otherwise I might see about getting Squeeze.