P4 2.53
1GB RAM
WXPp
Pinnacle Studio 8.12
AIW 9800 Pro
MMC 8.5
SB Live 128 PCI
Dedicated 80GB video-only hard drive in DMA mode

Ok...rendered my first official DVD last night. It's 4 of my kids' favorite VHS tapes on 1 DVD with a menu at the beginning. Only problem is the video is about 2 seconds ahead of the sound on the 3rd & 4th videos, but perfect on the 1st and 2nd videos. I have the latest drivers for the sound card. All audio/video is correct on captured video, it's just been screwed up during rendering. All video captured via ATI MMC.

What's the first (and second, and thrid) place I need to start to solve my problem?

Thanks!

What is "rendering"? Are you referring to the authoring process? Where you make menus?

I can already guess than Pinnacle Studio 8, one of the worst piece of video software ever made, is likely the culprit.

Try one of these instead:

Ulead DVD Workshop 2 (my personal favorite)
http://www.ulead.com/dws/trial.htm
Pros: advanced options, pro quality output, not difficult to learn
Cons: $400-500

TMPGEnc DVD Author (TDA)
http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/tda16.html
Pros: $60-70, dummy-friendly
Cons: very homemade looking menus, bad font control, overall lacking in menu quality (from a pro viewpoint)

I just knew you were going to say that! Is v.9 any better?

Any software suggestions in between the low & high you gave me? Not sure how hubby will take to my spending another $400 on software when I just paid $275 for that TBC-1000!

Pinnacle is just not very good at anything consumer level these days. Not hardware, not software. Just bad stuff.

Another option:
DVDit! PE (pro edition) 2.5 is available for $150:
http://estore.sonic.com/enu/dvdit/pe.asp?lang=enu
Notes: This is a very nice software package. Until I got Ulead DVDWS2, this was my software of choice for almost 3 years. It will be very picky about video sources, but it will accept ATI-made MPEG-2 video files just fine. The only catch is you may need to demux the video/audio, and then convert the audio to WAV or AC3 format. DVDit! has been known to reject MP2 audio or muxed a/v MPEG files (meaning the audio and video are together in an MPEG, not separate files). That can be done with freeware (TMPGENC ENCODER to demux, Besweet to convert MP2 audio to WAV or AC3). You import the audio and video files separately, but it's easy. Just follow the guides for DVDit! found on this site. The only real downside to DVDit! is no multiple VTS (multi VTS is explained in the authoring FAQ guide on digitalFAQ.com), but few users really need this. Besweet guides are in this support forum, in audio section. If you need help with TMPGENC demux ask (open TMPGENC, file->tools, simple demux .. easy as that!).

Do NOT get DVDit! 5.2, terrible software to date (hoping they one day release updates to make this newest version of DVDit! worthwhile). Only PE 2.5 was ever any good.

Other software? Not really. There are some software packages for $100-300, but they are honestly no better in quality than TDA. And several are more limited and/or more difficult to learn.

A lot of people like TDA, it's nifty software. It's not necessarily bad looking, but it'll never pass for pro quality is the only catch. This is why I suggest you use the trials. They are full-function for 30 days each.

For Ulead DVDWS2, academic versions generally for for about $300, if you have access to a student or are one yourself.

DVDit! PE has no trial, but it is very nice software. I made many a DVD with it, all very slick quality output.

Thanks for your help. I'll update you when I make a decision.