Answering my own question...
Here is the code I settled on, works in every browser I tried and uses a poster frame as the launch button. Streaming files are QVGA (320x240) with autoplay and controller enabled and loop disabled.
<OBJECT
CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B"
WIDTH="320"
HEIGHT="256"
CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE = "http://*url location of your poster frame*.jpg" >
<PARAM name="QTSRC" VALUE = "http://*url location of your poster frame*.jpg" >
<PARAM name="HREF" VALUE = "rtsp://*url location of your streaming file*.mov" >
<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE = "true" >
<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE = "true" >
<PARAM name="TYPE" VALUE = "video/quicktime" >
<PARAM name="TARGET" VALUE = "myself" >
<EMBED
SRC = "http://*url location of your poster frame*.jpg"
QTSRC = "http://*url location of your poster frame*.jpg"
HREF = "rtsp://*url location of your streaming file*.mov"
TARGET = "myself"
CONTROLLER = "true"
WIDTH = "320"
HEIGHT = "256"
LOOP = "false"
AUTOPLAY = "true"
PLUGIN = "quicktimeplugin"
TYPE = "video/quicktime"
CACHE = "false"
PLUGINSPAGE= "http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" >
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
Hope that is some help for one of the 300 or so folks that read this post! Good Luck!
