FFMpeg is a great tool for converting video including flash, quicktime, ogg, windows media (wmv) as well as plenty more formats. For example, you could use it if you've got a DVD and you want it converted to work on your MP4 media player. Converting media formats in Linux, Windows or Mac has historically been something that's not easy. FFMpeg certainly brings the technology together to allow the conversion of formats (and at a zero cost too), only problem is, FFMpeg is a command line utility. Front-ends (graphical tools that use FFMpeg in the background) do exist, but the ones I've seen so far are overly complicated and don't let you easily just convert a file with sensible defaults.
The screenshot to the right hand side is a piece of software called winFF. Not the most Linux-loving entitled software I've ever heard of, but it seems to share a lot of the simple interface attributes that similar multimedia software like Brasero (CD Burning software found in Gnome) have to offer. That's good because it's (basically) just reduced the work of converting a video to a simple point-and-click exercise.
It's written in an unusual language: Free Pascal, but don't let that stop you. It's available for Ubuntu & Debian as well as other RPM (Red Hat) based distributions. It's also available for all flavours of Windows and is usable in a good number of languages. Command Line? What command Line!
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