iPod I'm tired of tedious video conversions... help me choose res/format pls

[irock]

Hi, I got 51 episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist & 250 Friends as well as 20 years of Star Trek to rip...

I need to watch these on TV so I need the highest possible res. After 3 months of trial and errors, I found out MPEG-4 SP maybe what I need, and XviD in MP4 works with iPod.

My question is: what resolution, format should I choose?

My stuff is primarily ANIME & 4:3 TV.

Pls help. I want to end this dreadful format/res choice thing.

 

[Counterfit]

What are you going to be playing from? What kind of TV? (HD? SD? ED?) If it doesn't support progressive scan, just go with 640x480, as that's pretty much what your TV will handle. Of course, if you have them on DVD, just pick up a $20 player.

 

[irock]

What are you going to be playing from? What kind of TV? (HD? SD? ED?) If it doesn't support progressive scan, just go with 640x480, as that's pretty much what your TV will handle. Of course, if you have them on DVD, just pick up a $20 player.

I have a 1080i/720p semi-HD TV from Hitachi. I believe it supports progressive up to 1280x820... but without any 720p content to play with, I can't be sure.

I am kinda thinking if I should just hold off ripping my DVDs b/c 1st generation of video iPod SUCKS in terms of video compatibility. (Don't bash me plssss... ) Come on... 320x240 H.264??? What good would that be for TV output? I'm so torn between MPEG-4 XviD 514x416 and H.264 320x240.

FYI, I am a frequent lone traveler so I need all these video in digital to ease the burden of TEN boxes of Friends DVD and FOUR boxes of Fullmetal Alchemist discs on my back.

Here's my finding so far...

1. Use 'deinterfacing' in HandBrake if you are encoding fast-action video like ANIME.
2. Use highest possible res... but I don't know if encoding method I should choose. H.264, XvID & that FFMPEG all seem to produce about the same quality on TV... with H.264 lagging behind a bit.

 

[Counterfit]

You don't have a laptop you could take with you? That would probably be much better quality-wise (especially if it has a DVI or HDMI port) than an iPod anyway, simply because of available processing power.