x.264 experiences/advice/encoding please

[DrBloodmoney]

I've recently been converting my sage recordings (3.2GB/hour) to x.264 mpeg-4 files for archiving. In the past I was using Xvid (through AutoGK) which I was satisfied with. But I'm very impressed with the superior/equivalent quality at a smaller filesize with x.264. I've been tweaking the x.264 settings and trying to settle on a good encoding scheme for my sage recordings. Thus far I've been using a video bitrate of 1000 with AAC at 50 CBR for audio. This gives about 500 MB/hour. I planning on dropping the bitrate a little lower (maybe 800) and seeing where that gets me. I've been using the MeGUI/x.264 from the doom9 boards, which has a little bit of a learning curve, but I'm happy with it. Watching the video with Zoomplayer.

Anyone with any experiences with this? Any settings/bitrate advice you care to dispense?

It seems that the H.264 standard is the future of video so I might as well jump on board.