If your just starting out you should check out Video Edit Magic it's free and fairly simple for starters
I LOVE sony vegas 6. At it only cost around 79USD. Do a search on YouTube for lessons as well rather than using the impossible users manual.
The software which i used was very effective in video editing , it was 'Pinnacle Video spin', very gud software....
Did you try VOB to SWF Converter? I always use it to convert video to flv video for uploading to my homepage, my friends recommend it to me, it works pretty well. If you are interested in it, here is a guide about how to download and use it http://www.flash-video-soft.com/blog/?p=200 Hope it helps, you can use http://www.ask.com to search more answers or email me if you need furter help.