I had been working w/ MainConcept for two weeks and was about to buy it. Then CCE basic came out for $58, so I bought it. I have worked w/ CCE basic for a week now and I am very pleased with it. The UI is not as bad as I thought and it does everything I wanted it to do. The manual is good too. It has two main draw backs:

1) If you select 2 pass VBR, it leaves the video and audio separate, so you will need to multiplex it back together (bbMPEG or TMPGENC can do it)
2) If you use DV format, it screws up the field order and gives you a video with some really weird problems. If you use DV, search the forums for CCE and field order...

All in all the quality is excellent, maybe even a little bit better than MC. It is much faster than TMPGenc, but certainly not faster than MC. It is very close to MC, but when you factor the multiplex step and the field order workaround, MC is a faster process.

With the $58 vs $150, for me it was a no brainer, but if I had the $150, I would probably go w/ MC. Why? because I am certain that when MC comes out w/ the next version (due out any day) which is rumored to include 2 pass VBR, MC will kick CCEs butt. In fact, I believe that is why CCE came out w/ CCE basic now... To preempt the MC release. Good marketing move.

I believe somebody wrote in the MC forums that 1.4 will be a free upgrade to 1.3.1 users.

I am happy with my CCE, I had to buy what I can afford. Plus, for what I do, the extra $100 in MC did not yield enough value.