LOL, funny you should pick TMPGEnc as an example. I have never had much luck with it, and it takes forever. I much prefer NVE or even Dvd Santa as a file converter over TMPGEnc. But CCE basic on the other hand I find much more user friendly. I guess it's all in how one looks at it :>)
I use TMPGEnc occasionally but yes it is slow and the audio quality it produces is pretty crap even when using the LAME encoder for some reason. I use CCE SP so it has more options so looks a bit more confusing at first hand.
At 2,000.00 CCE SP is out of my league. I'll have to stick with Basic at 58.00, they have pretty much the same engine except for the number of passes they can make.
As BigO almost pointed out, one doesn't have to learn CCE at all. Rebuilder runs all necessary aspects of CCE from inside the Rebuilder program. Utilizing the same encoding engine as the $2000 SP, CCE Basic is a steal at $58. For those lucky enough to have SP, that with the RB is an unbeatable package. I hear the 3 to 4 passes with SP does make a slight improvement with the bigger movies over the 2 passes possible with Basic. Only with the biggest movies or discs with a lot of extras will a difference be noticable. If one can follow instructions, setting RB/CCE up is a walk in the park. There's nothing to operating it except loading files once it is set up. The power of Cinema Craft Encoder for mpeg encoding with the ease of the simplest one button app, it's almost unbelievable. If one had to learn how to use Cinema Craft Encoder it would be difficult. But that is the beauty of it; one only needs to learn how to push the button on Rebuilder. Once CCE is loaded, it just sets there and works under the control of Rebuilder.