I thought about speaking up, because I do this kind of thing. But I use such a mishmash of software, that I could never explain it to someone. I use stuff which isn't too difficult to manage, but isn't free, and some free stuff that would confuse the heck out of any first time user (I still have to reference the manual anytime I want to do something different).
For an easy(-ish) to use encoder you could try
TMPGEnc XPress. It can deliver very good results, but that may require a little work with getting the encode parameters right, and it is $100. It is my usual encoder, because it is Cuda accelerated.
x264 seems to deliver better results, it's free, and nearly impossible to use (let alone find a copy), along with being an order of magnitude slower.
TMPGEnc does also have
Authoring Works. I've not actually used it, but from reading their info about it, it seems more friendly than XPress, but at the same time less powerful. But it does create menus and chapters (XPress is just an encoder, you need to import the video into something else to structure it). It's also $100, but may be the way to go. It does have a free trial, so you can figure out if it works for you.
