question to mac users
 

how do you convert .mpeg to .avi or .mpg?

Final Cut.

is there a cheaper solution ? i mean its fucking $1000 and i only need to use it once :(

Maybr here, I;m too drunk to really lookj hard, but I got some software from here awhile aback and it seemed like a good resource.

http://www.pure-mac.com/video.html

Look for unix scripts in general I am sure they would work. I know on linux there are a ton of apps that can convert videos. I am not sure if virtualdub does mpeg to avi but you could look and see if it does and if it runs on mac.

ffmpegx
Will do anything and everything you want

Videolan Client can also do it, but ffmpeg is tops.