I bet Handbrake would really do the trick. It runs natively in Linux. Just download the source code and compile it. If it doesn't compile for you, maybe they have a good deb by now, or you could try to compile an older version. I've compiled before in Linux and it was easy to do, but recent attempts failed. In my mind, I keep, let's call them "disc operations", and, let's call the other category "media operations", as two separate categories. Converting video from one format to another, reducing video quality, upconverting video, etc. are all "media operations", and by media I mean videos, music, pictures, audio, etc. A "disc operation" is an operation concerning disc structures such as tracks and sessions. So closing sessions, closing tracks, beginning sessions, beginning tracks, closing the disc, (I think there's even "opening discs" and "opening sessions" for re-writable discs), imaging a disc, burning a disc, etc. are all "disc operations" and don't have anything to do with "media operations". So remember, some programs are for "media operations" and others "disc operations". So you may have to use one program to reduce the video quality (and save the resultant video to a folder somewhere), and another to burn it to a disc. Cheers, Jake
