What are the best settings for video play on the "MPlayer"...?

I am using the Media Converter.

Resolution you can use "770 MPlayer Optimal (400*240)", and Video Bitrate 384 is enough, or 448 for detail.

That's too low a bitrate... Read here: http://maemo.org/community/wiki/VideoEncoding

I am using:

770 High Quality (352x208) 3/4 fps
Video Bitrate: 768
Audio Bitrate: 96

It's not that clear and it's pretty "herky-jerky" and not a smooth video playback.

Thanks, what about "Enhance Color" & "Audio Gain"...?

Try using 400x240 resolution and original fps instead. It should work a lot better.

The resolution you are using now requires software scaling, so you lose both in image quality and decoding speed. Also changing fps is always a bad idea, first you get jerkiness (clearly visible on panning scenes) even if the cpu is fast enough for decoding this video, in addition you have a risk of encountering audio/video sync problems.

As for video bitrate, it should be fine with MPlayer, but you can check 'Report' after video playback to see the statistics and ensure that no frames have been dropped. Video should play nonstop till its finish on its own without you interrupting it, otherwise you will not get detailed statistics. You can use some short video clip for testing. If you get dropped frames, try reducing bitrate until it is fine. Audio bitrate for mp3 does not affect cpu usage in mplayer, choose any value you like taking only sound quality and file size into account.

Good luck.

Just FYI, the settings I use for 16:9 widescreen resolution videos in Media Convertor are:

770 MPlayer Optimal 400x240
1024 video bitrate
96 audio bitrate
Optimize for 770 full screen (crops video)
High quality conversion (2-passes)


These settings give me the best quality video, although in fast moving scenes there are a few dropped frames here and there. I've tried smaller video bitrates but it results in pixelation and lower quality. 96kbps for audio bitrate is a little low when using high quality headphones, sometimes I do 128kpbs. Note that for 16:9 widescreen resolution video I use the "Optimize for 770" option which crops the frame, since the 770 has a 15:9 screen ratio. This causes you to lose a little of the picture, but it corrects for stretching/squishing of the frame.

I have yet to be able to properly convert videos with a 4:3 video resolution ratio. Using the "Optimize for 770" option overly crops the frame, turning 4:3 into 15:9 by cutting off huge chunks of the top and bottom. Without enabling that option, I get a 4:3 video that is stretched width wize to 15:9.

Thanks, I'll try that!

I would not recommend using both high bitrate and 2-pass encoding together. The purpose of 2-pass encoding is to estimate and assign more bits for high complexity scenes which need them at the expense of more simple ones. So the bitrate 1024 you mentioned above is an average bitrate value (with local maximums and minimums far away from this value). Two pass encoding provides the best quality per file size and is a good choice assuming the cpu is fast enough to handle any bitrate we throw at it (which is true for desktop but not quite true for internet tablets). So some scenes may get too high bitrate and choke your 770/N800 cpu. By the way, there are some interesting mencoder options (vrc_maxrate and vrc_minrate) which may be used to specify lower and upper bitrate boundaries according to their description. Probably trying these options with two pass encoding may help to avoid framedrops.

But if you don't care about file sizes and want the best quality possible, I suggest to use a high constant bitrate and single pass encoding.

I'm not too knowledgable, but I ran several 30 second test videos with 1024 video bitrate, comparing 2 pass encoding and 1 pass encoding. Each time, 2 pass encoding created a better quality video, and both had about equal dropped frames (not many).

I have watched about three 40 minute TV show episodes using 2 pass encoding and 1024 video bitrate and it looks good to me. Perhaps my videos don't have enough action scenes to make the frame rate drop?

In this case you could increase bitrate for single pass encoding until the quality gets closer or surpasses 1024 kbps 2-pass encoding while still being easier for your cpu to handle it smooth. But that's just the theory, surely more tests are welcome.