I'm still kind of a newbie, but I've been making fan videos on my Mac, with reasonably good results, using Final Cut Pro, Quicktime Pro, Compressor, and sometimes MPEG Streamclip. The thing I like most about these apps is that they allow you to change frame size (though Streamclip has limitations here), crop black letterbox borders, deinterlace, downsize with good quality, and even edit brightness, contrast, etc.
Anyway, I'm having a hard time finding suitably cheap, simple, uncomplicated compression apps on the PC side. I want to use them on my own PC, but also I want to be able to tell newbie first-time fan vidders about some easy, cheap programs they can try. The more sophisticated compression techniques (which I'm still learning, and after all, I'm mostly a Mac vidder) will be something they'll learn as they progress.
I tried River Past's Video Cleaner and I like it well enough, but it doesn't deinterlace and it doesn't resize down well. I've tried SUPER, but again, no custom frame sizes, and the audio "drifts" (just a tiny bit) for me. There are a few other apps which are free or almost free, and sometimes they work okay, but there's always a problem. Some of the apps are too futzy or the interface is not simple enough for a newbie.
I have to think that there's something better out there that I'm missing. Please help! And again, what I'm looking for is free or cheap (under $30), custom frame sizes, good downscaling, deinterlace, decent choice of codecs, trimming letterbox (if possible). Where do I find such an app?
Thank you so much in advance.





