Camp Fire Time Lapse (C&C would be great)

[kluanelaker]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfAe5mBTzHM[/ame]
My third budget HQ time lapse using my Olympus SP-500UZ controlled via USB with Cam2com to shoot. 943 images over about 2.5 hours. Quicktime pro to convert the image sequence and encode to mpeg-4. The two 'flickers' are when my laptop decided to conserve power and shut down, interrupting the shoot.
Camera settings - Manual focus locked at infinity, ISO 100, F-5.6, S- 1/650 Mpeg-4 encoding settings - H.264, 8000kbps, 1600x1200(same as image size,) 30 fps keyed every 15 frames.
Ive just been playing around as I'm fairly new to using the big Manual Setting, and I realize this isn't the most epic time lapse ever, but I'm interested in really getting into this and improving. Can anyone suggest camera settings that might have been better and why? Or offer any advice in general? (including encoding settings, I find the results unpredictable)