I find Koyotesoft's
Free Video Converter software to be a very quick and efficient tool for converting video files. It supports the .VOB (DVD) format and the .FLV format (which seems to be the quickest to upload to Youtube).
As for the second question, the big-screen TV would probably be the better option of the two, quality-wise (plus it would eliminate the irritating shadows that can sometimes occur when playing w/ a projector on). You can connect the PC to the TV with an S-Video cable (like
this one).
Hope that helps to some degree.
