I’ve now had my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for almost a year, though I haven’t used it much at all as a video player.   I bought the 5800 for $260 from Newegg, and it currently is also available in a navigation package for the same price.

HandBrake has been around for years now, and if you’re into watching your DVDs on your computer or any other sort of device, it is about the best choice around.

Two part solution

The Nokia 5800 supports a max resolution of 640×480 pixels in an MPEG-4 format.  It also supports h.264, though only at a 320×240 resolution.  Considering the 5800′s 640×360 screen, I’d say MPEG-4 is the better solution, even though, bit for bit, h.264 is of higher quality than MPEG-4.

Personally, however, if I’m going to make a copy of one of my DVDs, I’d rather have the best quality I can reasonably get, which is beyond both of the above specifications.  I also much prefer using the MKV, AKA Matroska, container.  Why?  MKV supports multiple audio streams in the same file, supports chapter markers, and, most importantly, maintains subtitles without the need to burn them into the image itself.  Ergo, with HandBrake 0.9.4, my default profile creates a non-anamorphic, x264, decombed, RF:20 constant quality, audio (AC3 or DTS) pass-through MKV file with all subtitles included.

When I have this “master” MKV file, I can then take that result into HandBrake and re-encode to a smaller file for my phone.  As is the case with most portable devices, it’s not possible to use the MKV container, so in HandBrake I chose MP4 instead.  Then, for the picture settings I make sure that the width is no larger than 640, and the height is no larger than 480.  All video filters are off, since the decombing filter was already applied in the MKV.  The selected video codec should be MPEG-4, and I’m then using QP:7 as a constant quality of 80%.  For audio, I’ve selected AAC at 160Kbps with a DRC setting of 3.  DRC, or Dynamic Range Compression, is a great feature especially for mobile devices, where ambient noise and headphones can really mess with the ability to hear dialogue.

What’s most stunning about the two step process is that the second encode to MPEG-4 is incredibly fast.  On my Core-i3 system, a 20 minute video was done in a few minutes a piece.  At this rate, it isn’t necessary to store both copies: keep the original MKV, and generate the MP4 with HandBrake as needed.  Further, because HandBrake allows for queuing, it’s possible to set up all MKV files that you need, set them up, and let the process run its course; overnight, too, if so desired.