Converting SD DVPAL > H264 for iPad / iPhone advice

Hello

I have around 7gb of DVPAL SD video which I need to convert to iPhone and iPad.

I need to compress it as much as possible into H264 (no more than 2gb max). I have managed to get 7gb down to 1.5gb but the quality is not great. I was looking online and found someone talking about converting the SD DVPAL 420 to AppleProRes 422 first and then do the H264 conversion as the color space could cause issues and I would get a better conversion. Is this true ?

End delivery is iPhone and iPad. I understand the iPad is 4:3 anyway so resolution of 720 x 576 is fine, but any advice if making the resolution smaller for iPhone is worth it and therefore reduce the file size further ?

Any advice would be great! Thanks!

Please see the original material and H264 formats I used so far ....

- Original Material format

General
Complete name : Z1_Day 1_Tape 6
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Original Apple specifications
File size : 604 MiB
Duration : 2mn 47s
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 30.3 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2006-09-25 14:48:22
Tagged date : UTC 2012-10-25 21:22:00
Writing library : Apple QuickTime
Original source medium : 001
©TSC : 25
©TSZ : 1

Video
ID : 1
Format : DV
Codec ID : dvcp
Duration : 2mn 47s
Source duration : 2mn 47s
Source_Duration_FirstFrame : 34ms
Source_Duration_LastFrame : -14ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Encoded bit rate : 28.8 Mbps
Width : 703 pixels
Original width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Bottom field only
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.414
Stream size : 573 MiB (95%)
Source stream size : 574 MiB (95%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2006-09-25 14:51:09
Tagged date : UTC 2006-09-25 14:51:10
Color primaries : BT.601 PAL
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

- H264 format I did using iFFMPEG on Mac based on above format.

General
Complete name : blah.avi
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 48.4 MiB
Duration : 15mn 33s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 435 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf54.63.104

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 15mn 32s
Bit rate : 302 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 414 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.029
Stream size : 33.6 MiB (69%)
Writing library : x264 core 129 r481 3a1e20c
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=8 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=cbr / mbtree=1 / bitrate=414 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=3 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=414 / vbv_bufsize=165 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.41 / aq=1:1.00