What is the best video codec and software for converting 1080p video on a pc(windows or linux)?

You said "something for beginners" so let me recommend something inexpensive (but not free). I teach multimedia production to high school students, and get a tremendous amount of mileage from Adobe Premiere Elements. I use the version packaged with Adobe Photoshop Elements, and together we do some very involved work.

The ability to create well-layed out DVDs with good menu systems and thumbnails is really well polished. In addition, because it is an Adobe product, it does tremendous work with Flash animation. The ability to grab multiple video sources (SD, HD, various formats) and export it all into a project of any or several final types (DVD, flash video, etc) is really excellent.

You CAN do all of this with free applications, I've done it, I show my students the applications and tools to do so for barebones or no overhead work (starting from nothing, basically). The advantages of having an integrated suite to do capture, organization, special effects, post production layout, and final output, that is well organized and efficient are pronounced. I've had my students do the free version first, using multiple separate applications, batch scripts, command line tools and similar.

They think it's cool that they can do some of the things they can do, but most of them say "this is hard" and they spend a lot of their time fighting with the tools rather than creating the content. Then I let them use Premiere Elements, and the lights come on. Drag and drop, automatic importing, seamless multi-format support, and suddenly they spend 98% of their time (post-production) working with the content, the tool disappears, and most of them don't even refer to the manuals or tutorials after the first week.

Also, the code is very stable and well-optimized. We work on P4 HP workstations happily (more than 3 years old). On my well-equipped quad core it sings.So here's a plug for a very good program, which also happens to have some amazing features built in (like sound score synching and built in chroma-key support).

And it bears mentioning I tried Sony Vegas, Pinnacle's, even Avid's product (when it was free) as well, Elements is the best in this category for "beginners", which in my case means interested students who are hungry for creativity but short on time to work and technical know-how. Good luck!

It's what I use for converting videos and DVDs to play on my iPod. It will convert just about anything to anything. handbrake.fr.

I know its an old question, but for those of you still looking at it I want to make one correction to the best answer. Adobe Premiere Elements 7 can NOT export 1080p hi def. It can import your full high def videos, but can only export in 720p or 1080i.

In any case, I recommend VirtualDub, and the free x264 encoder. I've had awesome results with it concerning size-to-quality ratios.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.