General tips for compression:

In any format try doing an inverse telecine to drop the framerate.

In mpeg2 if you use vbr adjust both the average & max bitrates downwards, & when you get to the file size you can live with, check for artifacts etc. Optionally re-encode cbr in pieces, trying diferent matrix settings, possibly doing additional filtering to clean up the source, then put everything back together.

In real or winmedia, dual pass vbr helps a lot, but you have to watch the minimum bitrate so it doesn't drop too low screwing up sections of your video (big problem with wmv8). Consider using smaller frame sizes & letting the users video card do the upsizing [you can always use a script to force the window size of their player]. If you're going real low re: bitrate, a *small* amount of noise can help force the codec to keep visual detail it will otherwise discard. Play with the quality & keyframe settings [might have to use the standalone real encoder and edit the audience files] - re: keyframes, setting these fairly long often works as the encoder will usually insert more as it feels necessary. Consider cropping your original source to exclude more background detail. Try capturing directly into real or winmedia - you might be surprised how much this helps - using utilities to trim the video if needed. Can try dropping the framerate, though I've not seen huge gains depending on the amount of action in the scene.

RE: DiVX - there's a whole bunch of stuff online I couldn't begin to duplicate here.

mike