h264 optimized for medium or low bandwidth
audio 44.1 sample ( i dont like to loose to much audio quality )
aspect 460x320 or 360x240 these are not defaults but give you something nice to work with should you have go back and use it for the web.
if quality is no biggie you may want to use a the on2 vp6 encoder to get the a high quality flash. It may reduce 30g to something like 1g.
Future use for the video should be your main concern. Ask yourself, "what are the possible uses that i MIGHT have for this video in the future".
If its for a client the keep it at full res by exporting a self contained qt movie from fcp ( not qt conversion) and then storing it on an archive drive. I try to store 2 versions 1 with the graphics included and 1 without (just the footage and the sequence of cuts).
You should have at least 250gigs for storing final cuts of all your projects at full res.
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What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."
> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"