Choosing video formats and codecs for media players

[JamesA]

What format should I convert my videos to for displaying on the WDTV Live media player from a USB drive?
They will be displayed on a 32inch LCD TV.

I'm struggling to work out what format, codecs and options to use.
I am using Super as the converter.

Generally the files are flvs from Youtube etc, plus some Sony dv codec camcorder avis from my handycam.

Basically the file size all seems to be all in the kbps.
The Video section in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate helped decide on the settings to use.
I read it as "1374 kbit/s – VCD" would be the minimum needed.

One H263 flv file was only encoded at 257 Kbps and played blocky (on my pc).
After encoding it to MKV, H264 AVC, AAC at 1440kbps 48k Audio it played better.
I assume this is due to compression as quality can't be magically added to the original video.
This increased the file size from 19mb to 74mb for 7 minutes of video.

I know theres a trade off between file size and quality, but I'm wondering if people can offer any advice.
It would be a long winded process trying to work it out through trial and error.


WD TV Live supports:
Video - AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9 Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG

Audio - MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS

Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPLSubtitle - SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

Note:
- MPEG2 MP@HL up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- MPEG4.2 ASP@L5 up to 1280x720p30 resolution and no support for global motion compensation.
- WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- H.264 BP@L3 up to 720x480p30 or 720x576p25 resolution.
- H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution.
- An audio receiver is required for multi-channel surround sound digital output.
- Compressed RGB JPEG formats only and progressive JPEG up to 2048x2048.
- Single layer TIFF files only.
- Uncompressed BMP only.

[jagabo]

Generally you're not going to improve a poor quality video by reencoding it. If the WDTV Live has trouble with a particular video try remuxing it into another container (if the audio and video codecs are supported), for example, MKV. The WDTV Live supports MKV pretty well. For codecs I would consider h.264/AVC (x264), Divx/Xvid, or MPEG 2 for the video, AC3, AAC, MP2 or MP3 for the audio.

h.264/AVC generally gives the best quality at small file sizes, followed by Divx/Xvid, then MPEG 2. I never use VC1/WMV9 but it probably falls somewhere between h.264 and Divx.