Video Conversion

Hey all,
 
Just curious what is the current best program out there to convert videos sent me to for scoring to .avi. Obviously it seems like Sonar likes .avi's best, so whenever I get a video whether it be mp4, mov, and whatever encoding settings all these different people use, first thing I do is boot up my girlfriend's copy of Premiere and convert the file then send it over to my computer, but it seems like overkill when I'm sure there's a good program out there that can do it. Unfortunately alot of the video conversion software out there seems kind of SPAMMY haha... I'm willing to pay for a piece of software, it doesn't have to be freeware or anything... I'm just hoping to find one that doesn't constantly advertise the new 2014 version and the 2014 Ultimate version, and send me 100 e-mails about all their other ripping and converting software and all that crap haha.
 
So anyway yea, any suggestions?

Thanks.

Oh wow... OK. I actually purchased X3 (and X2 and X1 haha) but am still on 8.5 because a) I've been in the middle of two huge projects for the last few years that I didn't want to end up messing anything up on in the switchover and b) I'm an idiot. So I have on my to-do list to finally install it in the next couple weeks so maybe that will help so I don't have to convert stuff anymore, that would be beautiful...

I'm a Vegas Pro user but I have recently been using Pinnacle Studio Ultimate for simple things. They are now at version 17.  

Vegas studio or premeiere elements are worth looking at for simple things as well.  You say you have premiere.  Wich version are you using?  If you are on cloud model you already have access to a simplified intake tool , Prelude.  It pretty much is designed to break raw footage into clips and log with metadata if you choose.  Otherwise just split the clips up export them in batch.

Is it the process or the export itself that takes forever? Cs5 does not include prelude. Not sure how much faster it would be anyway.

Try this:
 
1) Use the media viewer to mark in and out points.
2) drag clip to the small create new item icon.  This will create a new sequence.
3) Do this for each clip you want to export
4) save and close
5) open up adobe media encoder
6) choose the import premiere project
7) you will have the option to select all the sequences in that project
8) choose export settings and export