any alternatives of Nero Digital H.264?

I am currently using ND to encode some of my dvd collection into MP4 files. These files however need Nero Video decoder to play them. This is not normally a problem, however they do not work in my favorite application SageTV. I want to put all media in an MCE type UI for ease of use for family and guests. Some people at Sage have been able to get MP4 files to play, just not ND ones. So, my question is what is the best alternative to ND so that the resulting file will be more flexible and hopefully play in SageTV?

if you disable b-frames in nero, x264 (ffdshow) should be able to play the file,..

i just downloaded and installed ffdshow but I do not know how to configure any of it. Any help would be welcome. Also, b-frames option in recode is greyed out when using the Standard AVC. Should I use another? I will try a short encode tonight and see if that works and the quality result. But do I need to do something in ffdshow to make Sage play it?

make sure you get one of the newer ffdshow builds from celticdruid, there h.264 support is enabled by default iirc ;) "Should I use another?" depends on the settings you use, personally I prefer the cinema avc profile. Cu Selur Ps.: you can also play the files with VLC

i downloaded the most recent version from Doom9's download page. I have tried to put b-frames to 0 in the cinema AVC settings but still can't play in Sage. The non AVC files play fine. I do not have VLC but they play fine in WMP and PowerDVD 6 (won't play in 5)

got latest form and it still says using Nero video filter when veiwing properties of video file inside WMP. How do I change it to use ffdshow? Ok, did a reboot and then showed up fine. Sage still will not read h.264 files encoded with Nero. However they do play ones encoded with FFDshow in virtualdub. However the files created look like *%^&%**@$%^.... The settings tab for H.264 in ffdshow are non existent with no 2-pass feature. Can somebody point me in the right direction for comparable quality encodes?