Good picture size compared to bitrate

[northerns74r]

Hi all,
I am new on this forum and I'd like to ask you a simple thing!
I work for a sort of web-tv. I need to encode several videos recorded and edited in anamorphic PAL definition to the modern standard AVC.

1) I need to limit the bitrate between 1.2-1.5 Mbps.
2) I use x264 (even High 4 profile if I want) for video.
3) I use neroDigital AAC encoder (VBR, 30).

Question:

Do you think in full screen we can achieve better quality resizing the picture to 1024*576 or 720*400?

Consider that videos are quite "static": there are two cameras and we interview people sitting on a radio program, so little moving...

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