Videora vs. WinAVI for AVI conversion

[mitch2k2]

Other than the fact that one (Videora) is free, whereas the other is a commercial product, is there any particular reason to choose one over the other?

I ask because Videora seems basically slow as molasses to me, and the two times I've tried to transcode an AVI to TiVo-friendly mpeg, the widescreen aspect ratio has been janked. First, the image stretched top to bottom to fill my 4:3 screen and then, when trying to use the 16:9 preset, my 540 model TiVo scrambled the output. I've read through this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=283897) , and while it seems to be a workaround for Videora, it also seems to be a pain in the keister and entails far too much math.....

Would I have similar troubles with WinAVI? Is there any other reason (barring, as I said, the cost) why I'd want Videora instead?

[Stu_Bee]

My output is to a 16:9 TV, using a 140 Series2, Tivo set to 16:9.

I like Videora and use it in TV show conversions (both 16:9 and 4:3 avi's source) to mpeg2.
The trick that of using 24FPS for conversion helps the panning left/right stuttering issue.

I use WinAVi if the source format is something other than 16:9 or 4:3, as Videora doesn't seem to compensate properly, and I end-up with squished video (vertically stretched). Example would be Movies.
However WinAVi's conversion of 16:9 source requires me to use the 'zoom' feature on my TV, to fill the screen (top/bottom)