Here is my avidemux procedure for conversion of a DVD for N800-OS2007(!). The result plays without framedrops, in very high quality, with 128 kbs mp3 stereo sound and approx. 75% CPU load - BOTH in mplayer and in the built-in media player. Do not worry about the number of settings - you can store them as default ("project") and/or make a batch.

1. Open avidemux 2.4, copy your DVD to disc.

2. Open one of the big VOBs via file dialog.

3. Avidemux asks whether it should index it (for time line / preview pane etc.), answer yes (the index will be written to disc, therefore the copy action in step 1).

4. Avidemux says that the VOB probably belongs to a larger set and asks whether it should read the complete set. Say yes if you want the whole DVD. You can append other video files as you want.

5. Indexing a whole DVD takes a minute per vob or so (the first time only, the index will be reused). Now you can scroll and preview through the whole video, instant access to every singel frame via time line. Holding up/downArrow-keys goes along the timeline with highspeed (i guess keyframes only), holding left/rightArrow with normal speed.

6. Use markers A and B to select scenes, then just edit/delete, cut, paste until you are pleased (of course, the original file remains untouched!) with your preview. Note that after setting a mark you should jump to the next keyframe with >> or << since cutting is done exactly there, but not between keyframes.

7. Press properties button to inspect audio and video properties of your source video.

8. Video setting: MPEG-4 ASP(XVid). Configure: Main[ Encoding type: Two pass average bitrate, Average bitrate: 800 (do your experiments with lower values and tell us :-)), all others unchecked], Motion&Misc[ Motion search precision: 5, VHQ mode: 4, chroma motion: yes, 4MV: no, HQ AC: no, I-frame interval-Min:1, Max: 250, Number of B-frames 0 (!!!), Qpel: no, GMC: no, BVHQ: nopixel aspect ratio 1/1], Quantization[ quant.type: H263 (MPEG works in mplayer, not sure about media player), Trellis quantization: yes, others: let default 2/31], Second pass[ let defaults].

9. Video setting. Filters: My DVD has video size 720x480 (as most of them?). Add filter "Resize" with width 360, height 240 and "lanczos3" method, press "ok" (not "apply"). For media player you need a size as factor of 16, therefore add filter "Add black borders" with 20 left and right.

10. Audio setting: MP2(TwoLAME). Configure: let defaults. Filters: none

11. Format: AVI

That's it. Start by pressing the "Save" button. If it crashes immediately, then install XVid from http://www.xvid.org/ . Maybe some of the parameters lead to even better compression, but I did not have time to isolate them all. Video bitrate, for instance, could probably lesser without any quality loss. Do not forget to set "Number of B-frames 0".

Media Converter is a great tool (thanks Urho Konttori !!!), but this is a lot better, in particular because of the editing feature.