Best video encoding program???

[Clark the White]

Hi all,
I have some video clips which I want to encode to burn to dvd so I can watch them on a standard dvd player. What's the best program to use for encoding? or can you recommend a program to use.

In particular a feature I would like is the ability to "save" the progress of encoding - i.e. so I don't have to do th whole clip in one (if such a feature exists)

I have video studio (got free cam-corder) but I'm sure there are probably better programs out there.

Can anyone recommend any freeware/shareware progs or failing that a commercial prog.

thanks.