Codec queries

I'm a compositor editing my showreel in FCP and was wondering what kind of workflow ppl would recommend for me. I've made some sample clips of a shot from Shake using various codecs, and it seems that animation, component dvcpro50, pixlet and dvcpro offer the best image, with compression ratios ascending in that order. H264, which wikipedia tells me can be a lossless codec (didn't know that), looks very lossy even at "best" setting. In fact, I think I prefer the look of sorensen 3, at almost half the file size, which surprises me, cos I thought sorensen was relatively old news.

This is, of course, all subjective. I was just wondering what other ppl thought the best compromise was. I have enough space to work in uncompressed although my hdd can't keep up, so I need to use something. I have all my original shake scripts and aFX projects, cineons, plus uncompressed QTs of the files I want to use. Does anyone know how easy it is to turn an offline edit into an online edit by replacing lossy clips with uncompressed ones in FCP? Is that not the best workflow? And, if so, what codec would you recommend?

Thanks, would love to know what u guys think about all this, every time I use one of these bits of software, the drop-down menus make my head spin. I'm not really looking forward to opening up compressor again either (haven't touched my reel in almost 6 months).

 

Cheers for that, hadn't tried that one and it looks ok. The file size is relatively small, if anything, at about half the size of h264 when both are at best setting, from what i can see.