I want my image cercle - two of them in fact, and a site cercle to boot!

In the past year or so my nephew has become increasingly interested in how computers work and what you can do with them.  He has been fairly involved in the game mod community for the games he plays.  Last year he bought a DVD burner and now wants to burn some videos from the computer to disc, so he can play them on his portable DVD player. My assumption is that these are in games videos he has captured, or something similar, although I will ask specifically when I see him next.

I suggested he try out the Free Nero disc that came with the burner and he did, but got a message saying he'd have to buy Nero Vision to do whatever it was he tried to do.

I have no idea what Nero Vision is - I assume some sort of DVD authoring tool, but I encourage someone to correct me.

He doesn't have an income yet and so isn't likely to be able to buy what I consider to be a potentially over priced piece of boxware.  I told him I'd do some research on what alternatives were out there, and so here I am.

I guess my questions are:

1. WTF is Nero Vision? In order to find a replacement it would be nice to know what it actually is classed as.
2. Are there any decent OSS alternatives, or freeware, or at least decently priced packages that do the job without adding the kitchen sink? (see other messages about Nero, here at the DC Forums)
3. Ease o use will be big heretoo, as old Uncle Daleus will be the support person ;)
4. What other information do I need to gather for you folks to answer these questions properly?
5. What learning resources would you recommend the two of us read to learn more about what we're doing here?

Thanks in advance for helping me be one kids' hero ;)

I have for years been looking for a simple search and replace utility for the Windows Registry.  I want to be able to enter a simple alpha numeric string and then replace with one that is almost identical. Currently, I do the search and replace by hand, using the default regedit settings in XP.  No special "types" have to be searched.

Essentially, what I do at work is use Ghost to snap an image of a machine the way we set 'em up for campus here.  When the same model comes in, I can just drop the image on the new harddrive.  However, because these are networked machines, they have to be assigned a unique machine name.  This is the part I do by hand.

Granted the task takes all of 90-120 seconds, but sometimes I enter a typo which can cause all sorts of weird behaviour.

Another possible function to be included, or perhaps saved for a separate util, would be the ability to search for the same key, and bookmark it some how, so that I can return to the specific keys at will.

My final requirement would be for these to be so-called "portable" apps, in that they require no "installation" and can simply be copied to a USB key drive and run from there.  These would be dangerous tools to leave on a client's computer.

I have run across numerous utilities that do one or the other job, or both.  Invariably, such programs are also bloated with numerous features for which I have no use, they are time limited or usage and limited, and the author wants a payment which I consider to be out of line with what the program can do.

Also, I don't imagine for a minute that I've tracked down every instance of registry tool on the net, so if someone knows of such a util that's free, and portable, I'd sure appreciate some pointers!

Cheers!