First of all, Daniel, thanks for suggesting SUPER. You're completely right about the website, as it took me nearly 3 minutes to find the link for the download. My advice to everyone...don't give up. Actually, to save everyone the time:
http://www.erightsoft.info/GetFile.php?SUPERsetup.exe
This product does as advertised: "does for FREE what other encoders CAN'T do for money". I couldn't find an area to change the output location. It puts it in C:Program FileseRightSoftSUPEROutPut
It automatically names the file the same as the VOB, so one must be diligent not to blow over the file when doing a second dvd. It took about real time to convert. The end product was really good; better than other programs they charge for. The artifacts were blocky, but only present during considerable amounts of on-camera motion. The audio stayed in perfectly in sync.
At the same time, I had downloaded TMPGEnc. The GUI was much nicer than SUPER. This is truly a superior product, mostly in the user experience, as it should be for being $100 more. It has some really sweet features, the coolest being a frame view beneath the main playback window in edit mode. It scrolls thumbnails of the frames under the main playback window during playback...WICKED! I wish VideoRedo had this feature! Anyways, the batch is nice, conversion is real time, and the final product was nearly indistinguishable from SUPER. That's how good SUPER was. However, in a side by side of the final MPG's, TMPEnc artifacts were less noticeable/blocky (I cued them to the same place in the video).
Price isn't really a factor, as we need something that will work well, and we're willing to pay for it. That said, TMPEnc is right for us. For anyone not wanting to drop $100, SUPER is as close as you're gonna get, and it's completely free! Don't bother with any of those $30-$40 programs, they suck: the final MPG is not 352x240 (although that's what you selected) among other random things they don't do right.
I'm still open to suggestions! Thanks everyone!
