It's an area I need to revisit sometime but I suspect on Linux, programs will be using the likes of ffmpeg and mencoder behind the scenes.

I had a lot of crashes the last time I tried but I am pretty sure the reason for this was me trying to be clever and using the VLC repository which I've since learned contains a number of incompatible (with the rest of my OpenSuse distribution) versions of the programs..

Part 1.... Will try to get the bounced part through in a post of its own...