iPod Best format for my video library? (for playback on TV, iPod and more)

[arcsbite]

Just a quick question as I'm confused and you guys always seem to have helpful advice.

My video library is in several formats and I want to consolidate it all so I don't have to keep converting videos.

I have a video iPod (that I rarely watch video on but the option would be nice)
I have a HD Dell monitor (which I watch a lot of my movies on)
I have a projector (in the living room, Standard Deff but we use it often)


...my video library is stored on an external drive, which is linked to my Airport Base station.
I currently stream from that to my mac, when I want to watch a movie downstairs on the projector I have to burn to disk or stream to the PC in the living room (which is about dead)

So...

I was planning on buying the Apple TV and so here's my question

What is the best format and resolution to convert my movies and stuff into so I can play it through my apple TV but not lose too much quality (also I'd like to get the best resolution possible...but I don't know if I can then sync these to my ipod)

...I don't want to have to have a video library, and ipod video library and an apple tv video library

any advice?

 

[speakerwizard]

h.264 handbrake / mediafork

 

[arcsbite]

h.264 handbrake / mediafork

what resolution would this give me?
do you know what the average size of a movie is? (I know when I use Handbrake to convert a movie to an Avi I get it at around 700mb but the quality is mediocre.

 

[arcsbite]

h.264 handbrake / mediafork

Also, do you know of anything that can convert the files i've already ripped to Avi?
Mediafork seems to only do the disks themselves.

thanks

 

[net26]

i convert all my videos to H.264 to play on my iPod in 640xXXX and 1450kbps average bitrate. they look REALLY good on my (standard def CRT, mind you) TV, and they play perfectly on the ipod as well. i imagine it should look pretty well on a projector as well, havent tried it tho.
it is, however, true that this is not nearly the best quality the apple TV supports, but since i dont want two separate movie libraries, it was the way to go for me. the videos play reasonably well on my G4 mac mini as well.

edit: i use mediafork for ripping DVDs. movies are up to 1.6GB in size (pirates of the caribbean: dead mans chest), but most are a little less, 1.1-1.3GB. you can use iSquint for converting avis (and just about any other format) to h.264, using the optimize for TV and h.264 profiles. i usually manually set the bitrate of avis to no more than 1100kbps and crop the black bars away (if they are there).

hope this helped

n.