actually, i don't consider the video capabilities of the N900 weak at all. i've thrown files >1 GB at it, and didn't notice any lag whatsoever.

the occasional video won't work or start to stutter, but those are usually files in a strange encoding format.
i see it as a kind of screening process - files that don't play on the N900 are usually encoded so badly that it does make sense to reencode them
but maybe i'm just lucky that most of my vids are encoded well