I own up to a lot of confusion. When you follow the dictates of various videoblogging expertise the h.264 codec is a standard recommendation. Not h.263 or just MPEG.4 but it has to be the Real McCoy.
Assuming that's correct I have a couple of questions: (1) Can a file only be rendered to h.264 by using QuickTime Pro? (2) Since I edit in Sony Vegas (Platinum 9.0)I have to render my video file in SV first BEFORE processing it in QuickTime. So what is the best format to render the file in Sony Vegas (or some other video editor) before importing it into Quicktime for exporting as .mov? (3) Mac snobbery aside, since I render a file twice, this seems a lot of extra effort and lot more time for the sake of image quality and iTunes download options. dave riley