I guess I am looking for the same use you are employing. Just a network transport and decoder.
I just get stuck with the whole disc transcode process. Most of the online software seems pretty shady. Ie. Head office in Romania kind of thing.
I will admit to owning DVDFab that lets me convert my DVD's and Bluray's into a more friendly x.264 format. I look at it from the perspective that I have had my daughter drop an irreplaceable DVD and destroy it with a simple scratch. The studio would not replace the disk so now I back everything up to protect my investment.
For my PVR stuff I use VideoRedo. It has a very good scan for advert function and takes my .ts files and easily converts them into x.264 Generally I do my encodes in batches on my i7 machine where I can load up 10 shows to scan and remove the adverts, Then quick check to make sure the start/end is right and the adverts removed correctly. Then queue it up for encoding. I then take the stack of shows and let it do it's thing over night while I sleep and by the morning the files are on the nas ready to be consumed.
