Those of you who have converted avi's to DVDs and/or authored DVDs, a little help please

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>OK, so I spent 21 hours (7 each) to convert 3 episodes of Macross Zero at the highest quality. They turned out incredible, I mean the picture was amazing. Only problem is, there was no sound. So I checked the .wav file (I was using TMPGEnc and TMPGEnc DVD Author, BTW) and there was no sound at all, like it didn't even encode the sound. I searched around a bit and it seems that you need to have an AC3 plug-in in order to convert the sound. So I downloaded and installed one and am trying the first ep again, just to see if it works, then I'll do the others (i can only fit 3 eps on a disc at that quality). Would this be the only reason as to why there would be no sound?

Also, I noticed that TMPGEnc DVD Author did not give me as many options as I would like. It gave you a few basic formats and all you can do from there is just change the background and the font. I want to be able to move the location of the menu options, change the symbols, add pictures as links for easter eggs, that sort of stuff. Basically, I want to have complete control over what I do with my menus and to play intro movies and movies inbetween menus and stuff like that, but TMPGEnc DVD Author doesn't seem to give me these options. I'm running version 1.0.4.22. Do I need a newer version which will let me do all this stuff? Am I just a doofus and can't figure out how to do it? If I need another proggie, which proggie should I use that'll give me these options?

Thanks</div>

[Imakeholesinu]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Yes, that plugin is nessecary for sound to be put on a disc. That is probably the only issue you will run into. As far as the menus go, no idea what to tell you.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Necessary for sound to be put on a disc? What about making sure the sound is converted? Or is that what you meant?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>OK, so I put the AC3 codec on and it still ain't rippin' no sound. How do I fix it?</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>You should be able to move around some of the stuff with DVD Author. It's not the best for that sort of thing, though I thought TMPGEnc made some sort of thing specifically for creating advanced menus, but I'm not sure.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I can't even set it to advance mode or anything, it's annoying. Right now, I'm having a tough time converting the Macross Zero with sound. Is there a way I can rip the video and audio seprately and then re-sync them?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I tried using VirtualDub to rip the audio separately. Couldn't do it in full decompression mode (ie. wav file) so I had to rip it in .wav file that was encoded as an mp3. Fucked up, but that's how it works. I'd rather have the full uncompressed wav file though, but I can't see to decompress. Why? I have all of the codecs required as I can actually listen to the file in Winblows Media Player, but the odd thing is, I can't listen to it in Winamp, it still says I need the codec. Very weird...

I figure if I can rip the audio I can then convert using TMPGEnc by using the original .avi as the video source then the .wav I just created as the audio source. Is this right?</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Nonono, don't use the Author tool to create source MPEGs. Use TMPEnc DVD Source Creator.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I was actually using TMPGEnc v2.5.10</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>You're going to go through about 10-15 times to get all of the formatting perfect with that. Just use the DVD Source Creator.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>OK, if this Cucusoft AVI to DVD don't work, I'm all over that. I just wanted to make sure that I got the highest quality I could</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>And I couldn't find out how to keep the original aspect ratio using DVD Source Creator....</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>If the aspect ratio is not the same as the standard, then no, you're not going to have the original aspect ratio. But, that means you CAN'T have the original aspect ratio, unless you add some sort of black space to the MPEG. Trust me: just use the Source Creator and be done with it.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm trying it now. I got it to convert properly with Cucusoft, although it took 11 hours for a 600MB file. I'm hoping I can get a better quality from DVD Source Creator</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>So, I can't have it in widescreen regardless? That's silly. I need it to be widescreen otherwise it just looks silly....</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Are you trying to convert a pan&scan into a widescreen? If it's already widescreen, you can use DVD's widescreen ratio (there's two different ratios you are allowed to use). If you're trying to convert from one to the other, don't. It's just going to look ugly when you stretch out the WS to fit.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Don't get me wrong: TMPEnc is a great AVI to MPEG convertor, but DVD Source Creator actually knows the exact formats you are allowed to use for DVD. It's a pain in the ass to spend eons converting a AVI, only to realize that DVD Author rejects it because of formatting issues.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I can see what you mean, but I just don't want full screen versions,it annoys me. I was talking with some nerd over here (uni here has some mega nerds) and apparently, converting Xvid is an issue right now that the nerd community is tryin' to work out</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm trying to keep the conversion to the original aspect ratio, which is widescreen. DVD Source Creator won't allow me to do that. Besides, TMPGEnc just doesn't like the sound compression on the Xvids, regular or DVD SOurce Creator. I've tried both</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/aspect ... tm">Aspect ratios</a>

Oh, well, WS to WS is different. BTW, I think we're both wrong about how the aspect ratio works. The resolution on the video has nothing to do with aspect ratio, actually. Check this out...</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>So, basically, I set TMPG to just full screen and 16x9 instead of 4:3 and it'll come out as letterboxed widescreen?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>BTW, you can choose the aspect ratio in TMPG as 16x9 to keep everything widescreen. DVD Source Creator just does it automatically.</div>