Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

Ah ... thank you for explaining. Of course, as you might have guessed, I don't experience this tearing either. Audio in sync, no tearing ... I'm beginning to wonder if I have a real 770 at all. :D

As for tearing, maybe it depends on the framerate. I always use the lowest framerate I can possibly bear (everything above 15fps is fine for me, sometimes I even go down to 12fps) simply to reduce size - it's an old habit from the days when I used my mobile phone for watching videos. I could imagine that with low frame rates, tearing doesn't become apparent even if it might happen between frames.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

I am somewhat confused by this discussion because of the absence of some numbers and specs. For the persons claiming "good" video performance, what exactly are the specs of the video files you are playing? I find that even the included sample video supplied on the device is below-par - it skips frames (jerky movements) and at full screen is soft. Is there some video that plays better than that?

My overall experience with video on the N800 is that it is a disaster relative to the other capabilities (audio, including streaming, and internet). My Mobile 5 phone does a better job at playing videos, including the sample video! I would love the N800 to be my all-purpose connected device, but it fails (my standards) at video even when one converts to the supported codecs. I like the PSP videos, those on Mobile phones, on the Archos and Zune. The N800 is inferior to all of these at video.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

Well of course video quality is a somewhat subjective experience. What is a disaster for you could be better than expected for me. Also, you talk about the N800, while my experiences refer to the 770 (of course I would assume that the N800 is even better, but this could be wrong.)

Most of the the time I encode full DVDs with transcode. I set it to 320x192 at a framerate of 15fps and a video bitrate of ~300kbps. Video codec is xvid4 (fourcc changed to DIVX later), audio codec mp3 (44100 Hz, 2 ch, 64.0 kbit). A full movie is about 250MB with these settings (2-pass encoding).

I'm very pleased with the results.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

Thanks. That's helpful. I am bothered by 15 fps (I see the jerkiness) and can hear the difference between 128 and 64 bps on sound. To make this a pleasant experience for me would double, more or less, the demands, and choke the darn thing. Not to mention the waste of the N800's screen resolution.

Seems really primitive when pocket PC's do much better, as of course do PSPs and Zunes and Ipods.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

Yes, if 640x384@30fps and 600kbps is what you need, then I'm not sure if this device is for you.

I've heard 352x288@25fps/400kbps (with 128kbit for audio) was the upper limit on the 770 (never tested it myself - too much wasted space on the RS-MMC); it's probably a bit higher on the N800, but not anywhere near your requirements.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

Video in general, or certain applications?

As I posted earlier, I watched Ice Age on a co-worker's N800, and it was near flawless. Better than I've seen on any small device.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

I've never ever got even close to that quality on my 770. The best I could get at full frame rate was 288x208 with some really low kbps and 64kbps for sound. I can't even get that on the N800 without stuttering. Mplayer on the N800 (the first build) is actually worse than the built-in media player.

Don't get me wrong: I have an Archos, which has dedicated hardware video accelerators and I expect that to be better than the N800 (although the PMA430 is also a Linux PDA, but based on Opie). It's just that I think that, especially in the N800, Nokia "decided" to ignore 90% of the processor's video capabilities. Why? Who knows, maybe Nokia wants us all to buy N95s to play videos?

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

The figures given for the "best" preset on 770-encode are the best acceptable quality (judged by me, admittedly) on the built-in player of the 770.

mplayer has yet to be optimised for the N800, but Serge has said here that he's almost to the point of 640x480 resolutions on the 770.

I've yet to determine the best quality for the N800, but 352x288 scaled looks damn good to me on the N800's screen. 400x240 in mplayer on the 770 looked ace (and *almost* plays back on the built-in N800 player).

These are damned good devices for video.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

This is more true than most of you realize.
I'm curious why you think this is true.

[EDIT]
Some posts here claim results that are far below what is achievable. If you're transcoding - go to xyz * 240 res and you get nice small files with good quality.

Re: Very disappointed in N800 video capabilities
 

Hmm with respect to needing to transcode, iliaden found that you can use mplayer's built in options to playback un-optomized files very nicely:

I bundled this into a shell script that attempts to auto-determine the best settings and calls mplayer with those settings for optomized or unoptomized content.

Mopt.tar

download, then untar and chmod with
tar -xzvPf Mopt.tar
cd /usr/bin/
chmod +x mplayer-opt

you can then invoke it on any movie file that mplayer supports by typing
mplayer-opt <filename>

Hope this helps someone, for me it's enabled to me to play full DVD rips (AVI with mpeg2 and mp3) with no lag, playback is smooth and even fast action scenes (as noted by iliaden) render nicely :)

I'm actually very satisfied with my N810 as a portable movie player :)
Also, with respect to the streaming thing I've been able to play video streams of The Office on my N810 with no stuttering or lag with a decent internet connection. Also, for me at least, youtube videos play with no lag or hangs. (I'm aware that this might be a processor speed issue, 330mhz vs 400 mhz but upgrading the N800 to OS2008 would improve this)