After reading several ways to get types of video media in an n800 ready format, Media Converter looked the easiest. And indeed it works for some files. But other .AVIs like the ones my camera outputs always errors out. Any ideas why? Could it be the container? And what can I use to put them on the my n800 in a working format? I know Nokia has a video conveter but I'm currently on my laptop which only has Vista and Ubuntu on there (no XP).

Could it be that your camera files need encoding to a particular format which Media Converter is unable to perform?

Most of my encoding is from DVD’s and I have little experience of camera files but have you considered TMPGEnc? Also Super is free and looks good http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

I hope someone will give you better suggestions but that might be something for you to try in the meantime.

Just for interest but my laptop runs Vista and Ubuntu, is this a trend I wonder?

Haha it might just be people who are unhappy with Windows Vista, but are to lazy to get a refund :P

The easiest converter for Windows is, IMHO, Nokia's Internet Tablet Video Converter. Some screenshots and details at:

http://www.maemopeople.org/index.php...et_video_conve

- good pointer to Nokia's converter site... i tried it under my x86 Unbuntu boxen and it works well...

- but begs the question: why use it at all?

- i simply copy my .avi or .divx over to my n800's sdhc and play with MPlayer...

- is there a reason to convert? smaller file size? no lossy results? special encoding features?

I would think to make it a smaller file, while maintaining the quality of the video. (how well does a DVD resolution movie play with Mplayer? Does it at all? Terribly?)

At a guess, your digital camera uses MJPEG for its AVI codec. And while Quicktime will happily play MJPEG AVI files on a PC, Media Player won't without a 3rd-party codec. I believe that Media Converter only supports the Media Player registered codecs. I don't know of any free MJPEG codecs for Windows, but you can get a 60-day trial of the Morgan codec from here:

http://www.morgan-multimedia.com/

At the very least, if you install the above and your conversions suddenly start working, you'll know the source of the problem.

I found the same... I just copy any movie from my PC to the tablet and play it with Mplayer... Save the hassle to do encoding. Most movies I have copied are about CD size (700MB) and play fine on Mplayer. (Fine meaning... not too much dropped frames on action scenes to ruin watching experiment...)

Of course if you don't have big memory card you may want to re-encode to shrink the size and save space...

I'm close to upping my 770 to a 810 (at least when it becomes available in Denmark).
Has anyone tried to play a dvd rip vob file?
I rip all my movies so the are online for my media center - and I would love to be able to copy them directly to 810 and play (I hate converting).
format would be Mpeg, 720x576, AC3

You'd probably have to convert. Anyway, Internet Tablet Video from Nokia works on Vista, they just don't offer official support for it. I found out that my camera taken .Avis also have the same problem. As they've encountered in other encoders I've tried so far (including SUPER.. SUPER just errors out). I can convert them to .wmvs with Windows Movie Maker and then send them through the converter but WMM makes it look horrible (blocky).

Any ideas?