Try the following freebies
http://www.freemake.com/I D.loaded "red cliff" but the subtitles weren't hard encoded so i tried on my installed Xilisoft and way too long to encode and then no sound.
looked around for a free alternative and was about to give up, so many were confusing.Stumbled upon this @ cnet, both down loaders and editors rated it pretty high so why not try.
Wow so easy to use, hard encoded the sub's with ease and no loss of quality what so ever
Looked at their other available software and can honestly say
easy to use, easy to navigate, easy on the eye.
Plenty of options also.As yet no problems .
Give it a try as i cannot believe this wont be snapped up by a large firm.