Having owned my DVD burner for a year, I've yet to make a DVD with no glitches. I don't think the software has caught up with the hardware yet.

I want to burn my VCD compliant files onto a DVD-R. Simple, eh? No. In theory I should get 20 episodes of the Simpsons onto 1 disc - and I do. But not without a/v synch problems.

I've tried Ulead DVD Factory and DVD Movie Studio, Nero, MyDVD - but all do it. I'm sure its not my hardware at fault.

Anyone know of a program that will do this without sych issues? I also want flexibility to make my own menus and chapters, and make PAL or NTSC discs.

Oh... and I need to be able to download a trial version. If I'd bought Uleads products I'd be upset!

Try different DVD-R media. I first got some no-name brand that would cause sync issues. By the end of the disc the audio would be about 2 seconds ahead of the video. I didn't attribute it to the media at the time, but every program I tried had the same result.

I got some Verbatim branded DVD-Rs and those have not had the problem on the 3 discs I've burned so far. If you want, I can drop one of the Verbatim discs in the mail.

I didn't think of that. To save on coasters I've been using Sony DVD+RW discs. I've got some Verbatim DVD-Rs that I was keeping for after I had written my test discs. I suppose could l sacrifce one now in the name of science.

Keep us posted on your findings. I still can't imagine what the media would have to do with it.

The software I have been using with my new burner is DVD-Lab. 30 day demo is available, and only $99 to buy. Has worked great for me, however I have been extracting from my TiVo, then going to DVD. I have A/V sync issues on occasion, but it is not related to the DVD, but the original files.

Has anyone use Screenblast Movie Maker software? It is made by Sony and it is supposed to come with these "exclusive" clips from the Sony Studios (Columbia/Tri-Star pictures.) So, I was curious if it included things like the Columbia logo like they have at the beginning of movies.....

Oops, sorry, I meant to send a PM and hit "reply" by mistake

But while we're here, what did you end up doing, Phil? DVDlab is phenomenal. I'm making some great stuff with it right now.

Ooops, totally missed this post, sorry.

Yeah the whole DVD thing. I tried all the software that people suggested and I still got severe a/v issues. Changed the discs too with the same results.

I'm putting it down to bad files and I don't have the energy to try again! I'm off work all next week so I might just try again

The issue may be with the conversion of the files and not the programs you're using. It's the most difficult part of the process. Unfortunately, many files that are grabbed of P2P networks are going to be tough to convert without a lot of programs and a lot of time. Doom9.org is one place to look for help on this.

Basically, your videos have to be converted to MPEG2 format. Usually TMPGEnc won't have much trouble, but if the file is compressed somehow, the program might not be able to read it.

I'd write more, but I'm late for a little trip. Hope you work it out and I'll be free next week too

This is the strange part: the files are all VCD compliant and VCDs I make are perfect.

Some of the programs claimed to able to burn these files onto DVD by only converting the sound and it DID work, but the sync issues were there. Just to be sure I ran them through TMPGEnc and they were still there. I tried seperate audio and video sources, multiplexing and still no joy.

Then I moved onto updating my firmware and changing discs. I was so sickened by this time that just wanted to sleep!

But you've got me fired-up again, and ready to rise to the challenge once again!

If the movies play okay on your PC, try Stomp Recordnow Max. That seems to be the most DVD complaint software that Ive run across.

Hmm, that's odd. So you ran them through TMPGEnc to make them into DVD-compliant MPEG2 files, yet get sync issues when playing the movies on your standalone DVD player?

First, you should try creating the DVD-compliant files as individual streams. If you're using any of the more powerful DVD creation programs, they'll prefer the individual streams, and in most cases insist upon it (some will demux a combined file its self). Now that I'm at it, was DVDlab one of the programs you tried? That should not cause any errors its self, and unlike any other DVD creation program I've seen (and I've seen plenty), it will inform you of any possible errors at every step of the process. It will tell you if the video and/or audio is not DVD compliant. If you used this program and didn't get these errors (and followed all the other file conversion steps we talked about), I'm not quite sure what the problem is.

If you used DVDlab and got some of the errors that the program tells you are non-critical, made the DVD anyway, and then saw problems, I'd suggest trying to correct those errors. If you used another program, I suggest trying DVDlab

Then try burning the result to DVD using Nero.

A couple pointers:

1) when TMPGEnc converts a file to MPEG2, I've noticed it doesn't actually make the audio DVD compliant (which I found strange). So, if your audio is originally 41KHz, you're going to need to convert it to 48KHz. You can do this in an audio editor like Cool Edit Pro (Edit>Convert Sample Type, choose 48KHz, stereo, etc), or follow a guide like this one to create and AC3 audio track. The Cool Edit Pro method results in a WAV file (I haven't checked if it can save an AC3 file, it might be worth checking out), but DVDlab won't have a problem with this.

2) Another issue comes when burning the DVD its self. You didn't mention how you were burning yours before. If you're using Nero, the trick is that when you're choosing the type of disk to burn, choose:
DVD > UDF (not ISO) > Version 1.02 (for compliance with the widest range of standalone DVD players

That's all I can think of at the moment. I've been doing some cool stuff in DVDlab recently. At the moment I'm making a great concert DVD with a friend for an awesome band

I just read through this thread again, and it sounds like you're trying to burn VCD-compliant files directly to DVD. I was under the impression that VCD was MPEG1, and it was SVCD that was MPEG2. I'm not suprised that you'd run into problems trying to make MPEG1 DVDs. I've found that DVD creation software will be lenient with the video resolution, but not with things like video and audio bitrates.