I recently downloaded TMPGEng and be using it to create VCDs, XVCDs and DVD movies encoded from AVI home movies that I constructed, edited and rendered using Pinnacle Studio Digital Video (SDV). I still have a week or so left in the 30-day trail to make MPEG-2 movies. My standalone DVD player is only capable of playing VCDs and XVCDs. I make the DVD (MPEG-2) movies to play on my computer and save for when I do eventually get a DVD-RW drive. The final AVI movie I write back out to DV tape using SDV. I can't really tell a difference in the MPEG-2 quality for encoding in TMPGEng vs SDV. However, I haven't be able to play the same two movies side-by-side. My basic question, and I'm only looking for opinions and not absolutes, is the "improvement" in MPEG-2 quality using TMPGEng vs SDV worth paying the $45 for TMPGEng Plus? Otherwise, I'll stick with using TMPGEng to create VCDs and XVCDs and SDV for creating DVDs.