Supported video CODECs and how to generate them

I gave up trying to transcode a few videos for OSM player, can't find any codecs that work. So I am pitching in this support request ... please help and document what we should do to prepare video for this otherwise most excellent module! =D

What I *did* find is the clips here work, if downloaded:
http://www.h264info.com/clips.html

However the clips here did not:
http://www.fastvdo.com/H.264.html

Neither did clips from here:
http://www.qvidium.com/captures/

What we really need is some documentation as to exactly what codecs should be used and, if possible, instructions on how to achieve the necessary results in Windows/Linux/Mac. So far MediaFront seems to work really well when given a video the OSM player can actually read, but the player seems really fussy and I'm still clueless as to how to transcode video in a form it will like. I found this, but the Perian solution is Mac only, so it's not really a solution: #1012016: Video types for Mediafront module