Transcoding video under Ubuntu

I've only recently started playing with transcoding my MythTV MPEG2 recordings down to smaller files while still running Ubuntu. Normally I'd reboot under Windows and use something like Auto Gordian Knot or Dr. Divx to do so. But hey, while in Rome. Plus that way I don't have to reboot just to transcode an episode of Teen Titans or Yu-Gi-Oh G/X.

So, I started playing with Avidemux, and it's a pretty nice program. You can mark and delete commercials quickly, there's a lot of available filters for cleaning up the video to allow for better compression, and it's pretty zippy on the AMD64... at least now that I've stopped using the version that ships with Ubuntu. I found the Avidemux wiki site (link below) that describes the newer version of Avidemux, only available by downloading the SVN source and compiling it yourself... that's what gives you the ability to access multiple processors. I followed the compile guide and it works! Now I've compiled in support for x264 so I'll see if I can get versions that are iPod compatible...

Main Page - Avidemux2