I think it took me about 18 months from from zero artististic / 3D knowledge to being a contract outsource artist. Then a couple years more to hit AAA.
Here's a sample of DV-recorded-then-compressed video. Works otay. http://www.whatif-productions.com/video.htm (not the Gobbler one tho, that's pre-rendered) One of the Discreet demo guys told me how they compress their 3ds Max vids, which look pretty good. Might be worth a re-examination of the TechSmith route, at least…