I have a friend that simply wants to make short MPGs (mpg1) clips from his captured DV avi footage. Obviously any NLE can do a good job with this task but is overkill. What is the cheapest, easiest solution to simply encode short mpgs from captured footage- without the extra features and cost that NLEs will add.

Thanks in advance!

Windows Movie maker comes with XP :)

it also allows for basic edits and transtions.. its not Vegas 5, but it will suffice

A standalone encoder can create MPEG1 without a problem.

Take a look at:

TMPGEnc (www.tmpgenc.net) (cheapest)
Canopus ProCoder (express) (www.canopus.com)

You can try out demo's of both before shelling out the money.

one word!

TMpgenc

OOps!! Rob you got there before me.

Well actually TMPGEnc is one of the cheapest with excellent
quality. It isn't the best quality wise, though. It has to let
CCE and ProCoder go ahead at least.

You are right Rob, i had made that statement in my reply earlier but decided to edit it out later , (didnt want to get into the whole my encoders bigger than your type argument!! , though i have both and CCE is only has marginaly better quality :-))

Anyway the best tools are the ones that work for you!

True to both. It is all pretty marginal and you can't beat TMPGEnc's
price!

So what did you do, Glenn?