Video Quality Settings = Frustration!

Ever since I started editing videos, I have been obsessed with quality.  It's been quite a pain, actually, considering nothing seems to appeal to me (at least not my OWN footage... other people can rip BEAUTIFUL footage and edit wonders!).

Here's my dilema:

First: I have using a MAC, so some programs are not even available on the Mac for high quality file compression/converting.

Second: I used iMovie to edit with (Final Cut doesn't like my G5, and the only version of Adobe Premiere I can get a hold of is CS3, and that IF I'm lucky... and even THAT doesn't work on my G5).

Third: Since I am using iMovie, the files that can be imported are limited, therefore, I must convert any video files I personally obtain into a MPEG-4.

Anyway, I've done a lot of searching on Google to try and find the BEST quality settings for the best file size.  Needless to say, it's been a wasted effort.  All the settings I have tried following tutorials lead me to nothing but disappointment.

Granted, I'm being EXTREMELY picky!!  But I have good reason to be:

One: I don't want to have to rip my footage AGAIN and reconvert it if I ever wanted better quality.

Two: When I use iMovie, I cannot adjust rendering settings (you choose basically "small", "medium", "Large", or "High Quality"--but the HQ requires an Intel Processor to render correctly, which I DON'T have, so when the file DOES render in HQ, it has no audio... that's a SLIGHT problem).  Anyway, the original imported footage MUST be good quality because iMovie really lowers the final output picture.

Three: I'm simply picky and want my videos to look good!!

So, today before work I played around with settings in MPEG Streamclip.  Granted, I still have no idea what some of the settings are, but I play around and discover them for myself!

After finding a result that started out looking well, I rendered the entire first half of the movie using the same settings... here are the results:

 Not looking too bad...

 Still looking pretty good... (and doesn't he have the cutest eyes?!! XD)

 Don't they look great as a couple! ^-^  (aka: Still looking alright)

 Okay in this one, notice the red table with the lamp on it... the chair looks a bit glitched...

 Oh... look at the kid standing behind Metroman with the ball in the air...
the ball looks pixelated around the edges...

 Then BAM!!!  
Look at her RED dress!!!  Are you kidding me????  *pulls hair out*

THIS is the original footage (VOB file) screen.

So clearly I'm LOSING quality when I convert to an MPEG-4... but I guess that's to be expected to a degree... but not THIS drastically!!!  And here it ran for about 2 hours... *sigh*

I do, however, like the color of the converted file better than the VOB file... why that is, I don't know.  But the glitchyness around the red dress I simply will NOT stand for, despite the rest of the scenes looking alright.  (It just seems to be the RED... which, this may cause a problem later on when I'm dealing with Titan footage, seeing as he has red in the suit... >.<)

Therefore, I've opted to simply go with 75% quality and do NOTHING with the interlacing, deinterlace, etc. feature.  I seem to get the best result with that.  Yes, I could do 100%, but I couldn't see a big enough difference between 75 and 100 to make up for the tripling of the file size...

Now, keep in mind, one of the reasons I'm SO picky about the footage is because iMovie will take a simple thing like the red dodge balls and make them look TERRIBLE!!!!  iMovie will make ANYTHING I import a lower quality...

IF ANY OF YOU KNOW OF GOOD SETTINGS THAT WOULD FIX THIS PROBLEM, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!!!!!!!!! 
(This includes not only MPEG Streamclip settings, but also iMovie '09 rendering settings!!)

I would be very grateful!!!