The only time this has been relevant to me was when i used my N95, it has a res of just 320x240, but could play 640x480 and this was good when connecting to the TV, but as stated before we get lower res on the TV then on the native N900 screen so here it does not help.

But i do understand the not having to convert thing, if you where to convert 8 movie s then it will take up to 16hours depending on system
But again, you just use more power on the N900 etc etc....