JDPFu.com 2025

The Nokia N800/N810/N900 has limited CPU. It is a portable device with fairly long battery life, so this is understandable. However, playback of DVDs or other videos can use the battery beyond what is needed for the screen size. According to Nokia, the optimal playback for video is 400 pixels.

Below is a small script to convert a list of input videos into the “best” quality for our Nokia Internet Tablets. The output does not playback with the built-in Media Player, but plays nicely with mplayer – or gmplayer if you want a GUI.

This script was updated 7/2010 to reduced FPS so when multitasking, the N800 does not become over committed for CPU. I chose 14.985 fps because it seemed to have acceptable playback and acceptable visuals. The fact that it is exactly half the original source frames makes the transcode happen quickly too. If you find the 15 FPS is too much, 20 or 25 FPS will work pretty well too.

#!/bin/sh
# This is for really simple XVID conversion to 400 x whatever, retaining aspect
# Input filenames with spaces are not supported due to the ability to have multiple input files. 
#     Remove the loop to support a single input file with spaces.
# This is a 1-pass solution, so quality could be improved using a 2-pass method
SCALE=",scale=400:-3"
XVIDENCOPTS="fixed_quant=4:max_key_interval=250:trellis:max_bframes=1:vhq=3"
FRAMES="-ofps 15000/1001"

for filename in $@ ; do
   IN=$filename
   nice /usr/bin/mencoder "$IN" $FRAMES -oac mp3lame -lameopts preset=128 -ovc xvid \
                -vf lavcdeint${SCALE} -noodml -forceidx -ffourcc XVID \
                -xvidencopts ${XVIDENCOPTS} -of avi -o "${IN}-n800.avi"
done

For me, this script works quickly and with about 90% of the input files. Basically, anything that mplayer can play (which is just about any non-DRM video files), then you can transcode. I bet other portable media devices like the iPhone, iTouch, and Android-based devices will like this format too.

I’ve used this with FLV, MPEG2 1280i HD, and everything in between to bring it to my N800 so I don’t get bored during workouts or airplane flights. Enjoy.