DVD ffmpeg: 1 second audio mute every so seconds

[rrvideo]

I'm trying to encode from AVI (xvid/divx/etc) to dvd (mpeg2/ac3).

When I play my DVD, audio is lost/muted for 1 second, every 4-8 seconds. This seems to be a settings issue inside ffmpegX but I cannot figure it out for the love of me. The muted audio is consistent every how many seconds so it makes me definitely believe it's a settings issue.

I'm not sure what's wrong: settings, etc. I DID try using MovieGate with ffmpeg, and was able to burn a DVD and didn't have any audio issue. Unfortunately the settings within MovieGate aren't the same as ffmpegX. And although one may say to just use MovieGate, I prefer to use ffmpegX.

Here are my steps and settings. Hope anyone can help. I tried researching enough but am not finding many people with similar problems. Most of my settings are defaults.

Dual 2.3GHz PowerPC G5, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM running OSX 10.4.5
Software used: ffmpegx 0.0.9u

Target Format: DVD ffmpeg
Video Codec: MPEG2 (ffmpeg)
Video Bitrate: 2994 kbit/s
Video Size: 720x480
AutoSize: DVD 16:9
Framerate: NTSC
Audio Code: .AC3 (Dolby Dig)
Audio bitrate: 448 kbit/s
Sampling: 48000 Hz
Channels: 5:1
Mode: CBR
Normalize audio: On
Filters: defaults
ffmpeg Options:
high qlty: off
use b-frames: off
4 motion vectors: off
use only i-frames: off
trellis quantiz: off
quarter pixel ME: off
decode with Quicktime: on
letterbox: on
QMin: 2
QMax: 20
Keyframe: 12

I've authored the VIDEO_TS in ffmpegx and outside using MovieGate w/ no effect on playback. Still getting 1 second audio mutes every so seconds.

Thanks in advance for any response....

[rrvideo]

Oh and Profile is set to DVD...

[Case]

What are the framerates of your source file and target?

[rrvideo]

Framerates is 29.97 for source and target.

[Case]

If the framerate stays the same, then it's unlikely the reason for this sound issue. You could try not using "Decode with Quicktime", or even the other preset ("DVD (mpeg2enc)").

[rrvideo]

Forgot to mention. I did use mpeg2enc and it worked fine. It's alot slower than ffmpeg though. I guess I'm being a little impatient. I'll try doing w/o "Decode with QTime".

That's for the response.