DVD authoring quality video & audio
 

OK, I am ready to get a DVD burner and authoring software.

I've checked out the DVD Architect demo and it seems stable and very easy to use. The only thing holding me back from the purchase is a thread from last week when Brad Higerd and others were discussing suboptimal quality (mostly audio) using the Mainconcept MPEG2 in VV. He found rendering to avi and then letting Sonic DVD convert to MPEG2 yielded better results.

Can anyone else comment on the results of their DVDs made on Architect or Sonic products? Has the image and sound quality been great?

Another interesting point Brad made was that letting Sonic DVD convert avi to MPEG2 yielded a DVD which required more disk space than rendering to MPEG2 with VV and making a DVD with Architect. This at least suggests that more quality (data) is being preserved in the Sonic conversion.

Any input would be greatly appreciated since I want to upgrade to VV4 and need to know whether to get Architect too.

DVD authoring quality
 

I don't know the products from personal experience but noting that the AC-3 codec is present explains the different file sizes. WAV takes up lots more space than AC-3. The video portion is probably close to identical and the saving is in audio.

Audio is not in MPEG for DVD, but AC3 (Dolby Digital). So if they
were talking bad audio it should come through problems with
their AC3 encoder and not their MPEG Encoder.

I haven't really looked at the procut myself yet, so can't tell you
much more than this. Sorry.

Thanks for the feedback. That definitely helps me understand this whole process better.