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Found another app that works well: MPEG Streamclip. Of course, if you're on a PC you'll also have to install QuickTime (or QuickTime Alternate). Export to MP4, Choose the "iTunes" button and select the "iPhone 16:9" setting (as a good starting point). Then set the Frame Size to no more than what the Nook can do natively (I used 640x352 for a recent video that came from my Samsung camcorder). Leave the Quality slider at 50%. I didn't limit the data rate but I'll have to try a much larger/richer video to see if this option still works. Make sure you do NOT check the "B-Frames" checkbox.
Another voice here recommended 44.1KHz audio at 128kbps; I see no reason to contradict that advice as, after all, this isn't a home theater, eh?
Click the "Make MP4" button, provide a name a location for the saved file, and then wait for the transcoding to finish. Shouldn't take very long (assuming you have a reasonably powerful, modern Mac or PC).
Funny thing about this first successful test of video on my new Nook: I was thinking about the day I bought my first 5th gen iPod (the first one that did video) and how that device exemplified the paradigm shift that had taken place from tape and DVD to files on a hard drive and how it provided total freedom in time- and place-shifting my video media. I even used it with the audio/video-out cable set so it played on my big-screen (SD) TV. While I'm not concerned about doing that part now (as I have an AppleTV and a WD TV Media Player), I thought how well this "half an iPad" played the video and, all of a sudden, my perspective of this device shifted radically. While I had bought it as an eBook reader (and found that it surfed the web in a not-half-bad manner, as well), its ability to play videos now made me think of it as a video player that surfs the web and does a bang-up job as an eReader, as well. Perhaps because I never went down the path of an iPod Touch (its screen is miniscule and useless, AFAIC), I'm looking at the Nook as what my original 5th gen iPod has grown up to be. So, rather than compare it to an iPad (which I own and is awesome), I'm comparing it to an earlier Apple product (the 5G iPod) and finding that it stands up to that comparison quite well. It's cheaper than what I paid (then), has a larger, incredibly sharp screen, and does one thing that the iPod has never done: I don't need no stinkin' earbuds to hear the audio.
Job well done, B&N!
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