What's the best practice for frame serving (sound part) ?

[omicron]

My usual routine for making VCD's is to take a source, if need be convert the sound track to a separate wav file, add subtitles, and frame serve from Virtualdub Mod to TMPGEnc.

I have used both of the following methods, with mostly satisfactory results, but I wonder whether there is a recommended method, and if so, what the reasons are:

I can either set up my source in Virtualdub to include both video, subtitles and wav (or original avi sound if there was no reason to convert it to wav), and frameserve "all three" to TMPGEnc (let's call this method one).

Alternatively, I can set up my source in Virtualdub to include video and subtitles only (exclude audio), frame serve to TMPGEnc, and set up TMPGEnc so that video input to TMPGEnc is the frame-served vdr file, and sound input is the "stand alone" wav file (let's call this method 2)

What is best ? Why ?

Thank you.

[reboot]

I have tried both, and always recommend method 2.
I get far less sync issues this way (actually none!), because most encoders are great at video, and suck at audio. Tmpgenc is no exception.

[omicron]

most encoders are great at video, and suck at audio. Tmpgenc is no exception.

Wouldn't that imply that you would leave Virtual Dub "encode" the sound part, and frame-serve this to TMPGEnc - that is what I would call method 1, yet you seem to recommend method 2, that is, to let TMPGEnc encode the audio.

I'm afraid I am missing you somewhere along the line of your thinking.

Thanks for you feed-back in any case

[reboot]

Sorry...I think I got confused too...anyhow...
I only use tmpgenc to encode video.
I rip the audio in virtualdub, full processing.
Transcode to AC3 in ffmpeggui.
I then join the two during authoring, not before.

[celtic_druid]

I would suggest AVISynth to frameserve the avi, with audio and subs.