Compressor (and multiple cores) is your friend
This is a big deal. In addition to what this note says note says, you can use other computers to render your files. It has taken me a little while to figure this out. This tutorial describes just using one computer but you can do the same for multiple computers. I did try this on a Dual 1GHz G4 and it slowed things down, so make sure that the additional computers have sufficient power. ...