Hey, I can only find pieces of what I'm looking for when searching, so I decided to make this post.

I am using a 7d, MBP 15in i7, FCP7 and Apple Color, AE CS5, and want to ultimately make the best yet reasonable file for Vimeo.

Right now, I'm conforming to ProRes LT, import the files that need effects done raw and doing them in AE, exporting lossless, then conforming those to ProRes LT. Then I dump everything in FCP, edit, then send to Color, send back, then I'm a bit lost about the export part. I generally export another ProRes LT file to finish, but I have no idea what I would export to for Vimeo.

Please lend a hand :)

H.264 MPEG4 5-10Mbps 1080p is what I use Depending on your Mac this can take a while with Compressor so I recommend the Elgato Turbo.264 HD USB dongle which can encode in near real time with very good quality

Here are Vimeo's recommendations Compression guidelines on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/help/compression)