OK, first test, here's what I find:
It was on a 10-second clip, rendered from Vegas at best possible quality settings, including keyframes every frame in all cases, 320x240, square pixels, unconstrained data rates. I viewed them all at 100% and then 200% size. Screen shots included. Smoothness of motion was identical between all three. Render speeds were similar.
1: WM9: 2.15MB. At 200%, quality was good; a little bit blurry.
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/3126/wm97sq.jpg
2: QT7, Sorensen 3: 8.49MB. At 200%, quality was good, but blocky in fine detail.
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/6747/sorensen30hp.jpg
3: QT7, H.264: 6.66MB. Quality identical to Sorensen 3, but for some reason, was brighter.
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/7514/h2649wi.jpg
Using H.264 settings as identical as I could make them, I used QT Pro to do the same thing (after exporting the clip in best-quality, full-size QT settings and using that clip).
Result: 7.07MB; a bit sharper than the Vegas QTs, but a little blockier:
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/8048/qtpro7mg.jpg
The render time was about twice that of Vegas's.
Now, this is only one test. I will conduct further study over the weekend. If anyone has any suggestions for possible comparison tests/parameters, let me know.
It was on a 10-second clip, rendered from Vegas at best possible quality settings, including keyframes every frame in all cases, 320x240, square pixels, unconstrained data rates. I viewed them all at 100% and then 200% size. Screen shots included. Smoothness of motion was identical between all three. Render speeds were similar.
1: WM9: 2.15MB. At 200%, quality was good; a little bit blurry.
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/3126/wm97sq.jpg
2: QT7, Sorensen 3: 8.49MB. At 200%, quality was good, but blocky in fine detail.
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/6747/sorensen30hp.jpg
3: QT7, H.264: 6.66MB. Quality identical to Sorensen 3, but for some reason, was brighter.
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/7514/h2649wi.jpg
Using H.264 settings as identical as I could make them, I used QT Pro to do the same thing (after exporting the clip in best-quality, full-size QT settings and using that clip).
Result: 7.07MB; a bit sharper than the Vegas QTs, but a little blockier:
http://img203.echo.cx/img203/8048/qtpro7mg.jpg
The render time was about twice that of Vegas's.
Now, this is only one test. I will conduct further study over the weekend. If anyone has any suggestions for possible comparison tests/parameters, let me know.