I am looking for suggestions on animation compression codecs that will work on MOST OR ALL DVD players yet yields good resolution, and small files.

I like DivX but not many DVD players will accept that codec.

I welcome hearing of your favorite codec and the reason why.
Thanks,
Pappy

You should use mpg2 encoding for any DVD as that's the standard.  Most compression is handled in your DVD authoring software. (Encore, DVD Studio Pro, etc)

Most authoring apps will allow you to set the amount of compression depending on the size of the video file(s) you plan to use on your DVD. 

I will agree with Animajikgraphics. Let the DVD Authoring Software handle the encoding.  There is a free open source application called DVDFlick that will do a basic job of converting video files and building a DVD including a menu.  Its not slick and all the bells and whistles of DVD Studio Pro but it works and its free.
http://www.dvdflick.net/

Some depends on how much storage you have to work with as well.  You would want to store in as uncompressed as possible.  You could go with sequential images and then have them put together (I can't think of the packagethats open souce off the top of my head, however your video editing package might have that).   If storage is an issue or if a little lossyness isn't an issue (might not be able to tell since you are not doing editing) Then go with one of the compressing ones.

I have C8 installed 64bit so I can't look at the built in settings for quicktime (Quicktime is 32bit currently)  I do have the Pro key (about 30.00 ) it will open a sequence of images and store back as a DV format or others.

Feed that into your DVD Authoring app and your good to go.

Note I just looked at my C7 there is uncompressed AVI for lossless and support for Quicktime Direct with DV and others.  That being said I would prob still do a sequence of images.  If there is a problem you can always start at a certain point if many are already done.