Ok, I think I might have this one licked. I found this utility that was make at xda (where esle) - specificallly made for handhelds by HTC. It puts vids in MP4 format which allows you to open them via the built-in HTC album player. The big upside here is that it is the only program that can access the hardware acceleration in the Pro - so the resulting playback is supposed to be WAY better. I will update when my first vid is done re-encoding, but based on the comments @ xda, this is the answer.