Since the time I posted this I found out that handbrake lost it's maintainer for the FreeBSD port. Because of this I just switched to using ffmpeg from the command line itself. So to convert from H264 to avi via ffmpeg only:
ffmpeg -i freebsd_rocks.m4v freebsd_rocks.avi
that will give you and avi with mp2 audio

So your picky and want mp3 audio:
ffmpeg -i freebsd_rocks.m4v -acodec libmp3lame freebsd_rocks.avi

Yeah, but you want to watch you avi files on your stand alone DVD player that will play DIVX encoded videos. Well then the avi file needs to be a DX50 sub format, so try this: ffmpeg -i freebsd_rocks.m4v -vcoded mpeg4 -vtag DX50 -acodec libmp3lame freebsd_rocks.avi

NOTE: certain standalone DVDs can't handle mp3 with variable bit rates, this will create variable bit rate mp3 audio. I have not been able to create constant bit rate mp3 yet. It has to be possible, I just haven't found the correct parameters yet. The only work around I have found is to create mpg files that will play as if they are a VCD, to do that use this command line:
ffmpeg -i freebsd_rocks.m4v -target ntsc-svcd freebsd_rocks.avi

I like to download a lot of movies and videos of different types. I have a few DVD players that can play DIVX encoded movies. My first such DVD player to do that was a NAD and it was very fickle on reading the encoded files. The DIVX files need to be encoded with DX50 subformat. I usually use avidemux2 to re-encode the movies I've downloaded. But lately there have been alot of movies encoded using H264 and avidemux2 (at least on FreeBSD 7.2 at the time of this writing 8/26/2009) doesn't handle them well. So I use ffmpeg from the command line here is the simple CLI script to do so:

handbrake -i -o

.avi -e ffmpeg -b -E lame

So if you wanted to encoded a movie called freebsd_rocks.m4v it would look like this:

handbrake -i freebsd_rocks.m4v -o freebsd_rocks.avi -e ffmpeg -b 2500 -E lame

You can use any bitrate you like, but I like a higher bitrate of 2500...that's it. Simple!

Just took this sceenshot of claws-mail running via ssh/Xming from my FreeBSD 8.0 RC1 home workstation on my Windows XP workstation at work.

When using FreeBSD 7.x I never had a problem with my Nikon Coolpix L18 using gtkam or digikam. FreeBSD 8 has a re-written usb stack and no longer uses libusb. Once I upgrade my camera stopped working. I spent a few months (of and on) comparing the source code trying to write my own driver all to no avail.

I read a posting from a user having the same problem, only he was successful in getting it to work as root. Amazingly, I had never tried to get it to work as root. I tried and it worked! So I now new it was a permissions problem.

Specifically, the newer usb subsystem creates devices in /dev/usb such as ugen1.2 and creates a syslink in /dev to it. So when my camera is connected it creates:

/dev/usb/ugen1.2.0
/dev/usb/ugen1.2.1
/dev/@ugen1.2 -> /dev/usb/ugen1.2.0

My permission in devfs.rules need to give access to a group so that non-root users can access the ugen devices. I had not updated my devfs.rules since FreeBSD 7.x and it looked like this:

[devfsrules_common=7]
add path 'ad*' mode 666 group operator
add path 'acd*' mode 666 group operator
add path 'pass*' mode 666 group operator
add path 'xpt*' mode 666 group operator
add path 'ugen*' mode 666 group operator
add path 'cd*' mode 666 group operator

The key line being the line containing the 'ugen*' entry. This line needed to be changed for use with the new usb subsystem like so

add path 'usb/*' mode 666 group operator

Now when the camera is plugged in a non-root user can use gtkam or digikam to access the images.

If you're using this method be sure to add

devfs_system_ruleset="devfsrules_common"

to /etc/rc.conf so that the rule set is added.