Could you please explain how you did this in depth ?

THANK-YOU THANK-YOU THANK-YOU!!!!!

This is EXACTLY what I wanted. Tried it out last night and works FAMOUSLY! You da man!

As for how to do this, simply launch a terminal window, change to the .mplayer folder and edit the config file with vi (or whatever text editor you want). Insert the 3 lines above and save. Couldn't be easier!

This baffled me; I can't find many movies or TV shows that I can watch on my N800 without transcoding them. I have a few quick transcoding presets that I run overnight on my queue of videos to get them looking their best on the N800. (320x240 on 4:3 videos, 400x240 on widescreen) I confess that I also boost the audio on several of the shows I regularly watch.

I would love to know what you're downloading; are you getting "iPod-ready" videos? Or do you just put up with stuttering on the high-motion parts of the video, which can be most of the time on high-action movies / TV shows?

If you just want to boost the volume, you can actually run the video through a variety of programs that will only re-encode the audio without touching the video at all. The free program VirtualDub for Windows does this well for AVI files. Simply re-encoding the audio at a higher volume is really quite quick. Perhaps you should look for an encoder that will flatten the dynamic range of the audio -- boosting the quiet bits without boosting the loud bits. This is also known as "compression" but that can get confusing when talking about transcoding; what kind of compression do you mean? File or Audio?

bingo.

coming from an axim, I must admit I was disappointed at the video playback on this unit (mind you that's the ONLY thing i'm disappointed in). whenever possible i convert my videos using the nokia internet tablet video converter software - however if i download something overnight and REALLY want to watch it on my way to work then yes, i put up with stuttering during action packed scenes.

audio levels are no longer an issue for me, thanks to the above config file entries. wish i had learned that trick from the get-go.

right now i'm biding my time waiting to see if some miraculous coder unveils software that plays all media files smoothly. the n800 is a GREAT bargain for the price, but unless i get better video playback (without conversion) i'll be moving to something with more horsepower once the price is right.

Could you explain more throughfully how to edit the config file?

I've been trying in the 3rd party file manager and I don't see the .mplayer dir in /etc. D:

Thought I might mention the pc app SUPER which is a transcoding app containing a widget that allows you to boost audio up to +50 dB. I've made use of it a LOT since getting the n800.

BUMP

Still waiting for some explaination to how to find this configuration file and edit it.

This is the simplest way I can think of to add the lines to the mplayer config

open an xterm (Menu->Utilities->X Terminal)
type:

cd .mplayer
echo softvol=yes >> config
echo softvol-max=450 >> config

To examine the file type:

cat config

If you need to edit the file you will have to use vi which is beyond the scope of this post.

Thank you! It works beautifully.

Thank you for the help. I just couldn't find the folder as it wasnt visible in the GPE File Manager or with the "ls" command. Why would they hide it? D: Is it for the same reason Windows hides system files by default?

Under Unix/Linux any file or folder whose name begins with a . is hidden by default as a means to keep directory listings clean. Most graphical file editors don't show them by default, although some have a checkbox to make them visible.

With pygtkeditor it is possible to open files in hidden directories and edit them. Otherwise you have to use xterm and vi.