ayight all you MAC users - here's what I've been able to do...

hardware: PowerPC G5, Dual 2 GHz, 1Gb SDRAM
OS software: OSX:Leopard
TomTom: 720 w/ 4g Kingston SD card


I was able to use my work PC to install the MobilNova player to my TomTom per the MobilNova instructions (perhaps a friend would let you use their PC if a work PC is not available). The install of the player can be done using your MAC as described by the support staff on this Forum, but it was easy enough for me to do this at work without any problems.

The task at hand is converting your DVD's and video files using your MAC w/ the correct playback settings and getting them on your TomTom for playback; this is what I did.

Using Handbrake v: 0.9.1 http://handbrake.fr/, I chose "iPhone / iPod Touch" in the preset settings to give me a starting point. From there you will need to make a few tweaks to this preset. The following are the changes that I made that successfully allowed me to playback the .avi file on my TomTom using the MobilNova player.

Note: BOLD items are the settings you need to change, everything else can be left to the preset settings.

Format: AVI file (the codec will change automatically to: MPEG-4 Video/MP3 Audio)

In the "Video" Area...
Encoder: FFmpeg (this may have already auto changed)
Average bitrate (kbps): 400

In the "Audio & Subtitles" Area...
Sample rate (khz): 22.05
Bitrate (kbps): 32

obviously there are other areas you can tweak, ie: picture settings, chapters, etc. but that will be up to you to play with. The basic settings above will get you on your way to converting DVD's to a suitable AVI for MobilNova playback.

<<edit>>
although the settings above are the recommended audio and video, I found that the audio settings left a lot to be desired. In the audio section, I used 48khz and 128kbps for better sound playback through my car stereo system and headphones. By doing this, you will of course increase your AVI file size - StarWarsIV DVD went from 397Mb to 492Mb.