Machinima makers: Resources or process for best quality 720p stream?

[guiffen]

I'm using After Effects CS3 and finding it difficult to compress a FRAPS-recorded video (60FPS 1280x800) into a streamable format with decent filesize (1280x720) and still allow for quality 720p format. I've clipped the video vertically so it doesn't squash when rendering.

After scouring the forums, youtube, and google; often getting advice from using different codecs such as H.264 to just switching software completely, I've wanted to settle with using After Effects. The best I've found so far for quality was using a tutorial on youtube recommending the File > Export > Adobe Flash method around 8000kbit/sec in After Effects. However, It tends to lose the crispness in motion that you would expect from 720p

Here was my upload of the best quality to filesize render I had yet. (@8000kbit/s) As you can see, even at 720p fullscreen, text is practically unreadable:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUO-OEzFj9I[/url]

Here's an image with the comparison between raw footage and compressed footage.
[url]http://i.imgur.com/yBdXS.jpg[/url]

Watching anything by Dasboschitt at 720p has great quality which I figure After Effects should be able to mimic. If not, is Sony Vegas the only other option? Thanks for your time.

EDIT: This is the quality I'm aiming for..

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX3wTUayxJc[/url]

..however a 550MB file for 30 seconds will mean I can have about a minute-and-a-half machinimas which is okay to start.. but will have to be fixed
eventually.

[editline]8th December 2010[/editline]

Or if I've posted this in the wrong place, can someone direct me where I can put my question? Thanks!

[Sylerr]

try around 20000kb/s

And if you are trying to use After effects as editing software, it isn't. It's a CGI/Effect software if you want to compose or make video's you will need Sony vegas or Adobe Premiere (Or something like it) it will work way better.

[guiffen]

[QUOTE=Sylerr;26591015]try around 20000kb/s

And if you are trying to use After effects as editing software, it isn't. It's a CGI/Effect software if you want to compose or make video's you will need Sony vegas or Adobe Premiere (Or something like it) it will work way better.[/QUOTE]

oh awesome, thanks Sy. I'll look into Premiere's compressions. Also, as a side note for anyone interested, I found a way to really cut down the filesize in After Effects, and that's to use Quicktime Movie Output with using JPG for the compression codec. Even at 70% compression, it keeps a great quality and drops the filesize by just over half which should allow up to 5 minutes max now on youtube which is enough for me.