Comment 2 for bug 148672

With respect to the second part of the bug report, the UI requested exists already.

Edit Rhythmbox preferences. Select the Music tab. Then click on the "Edit" button next to the Preferred format dropdown.

Using the editor that pops up, the user can:

* activate / deactivate the support for the format (e.g. turn off MP3 support);
* change the extension;
* alter the bitrate.

It even looks as though by editing the command string a different codec could be used.

I have confirmed that changing the quality for Ogg files produces the desired bit rate upon (automatic) transcoding.

I guess the only other thing I would say is that the functioning of this "feature" doesn't seem really obvious to me.

You still need to edit the HAL config file if your device is not known or the config file is incorrect.