[MattOktaNZ]

Yeah you can just copy a 700MB movie file to your phone and play it with Windows Media player or TCPMP..

The reason you re-encode it is to reduce the file from 700mb down to 200mb (saves space on your SD card).

And because the movies have screen resolutions of approx 600x400 whereas the Touch has 320x240 so the movie will appear squashed when full screened. Reencoding also reduces the sampling rate of the audio to help reduce size.

Also movies are typically 25 frames per second, I encode to 15 frames instead as its perfectly watchable and I assume saves processing power and battery life.

25fps plays fine but doesn't to me look better than 15 fps..

Still would like to know what settings other people perfer and why