avi, mpg, and asf to DVD with menus?

[HarlanPepper]

I have files of a TV show series in different formats (avi,mpg, and asf) that I want to burn to DVD with a menu button for each episode. What's the best authoring tool for this job? I'd rather have an "all in one" app so I don't have to re-encode the non-mpgs.

Nero Vision Express seems to only let me insert chapter dividers instead of menus for separate episodes. Sonic MyDVD had a nice interface that allowed me to easily choose button images for my menus. But it was soooooo slow when it came time to transcode and build the movies.

Anything else like this that is clean and easy?

Thanks.

[TBoneit]

But you have to re-encode if you want to make a standard DVD, that's life. Unless you only want to play it on the computer using media player of course.

Convert to standard DVD, then author with a program like Ulead DVD MF, or TMPGenc DVD Author. They both have 30 day trials as I recall it. Links on left in Tools.

Cheers

[HarlanPepper]

When you say "convert to standard DVD", does that mean MPG? I'm still a bit confused on format issues. If I have a video that's called sampletitle.mpg, is that in standard DVD-ready format or does it need to be re-encoded to a different quality MPG? Once all the files are in standard DVD format, it is then the authoring app that converts to all the IFO/VOB files, right?

I understand that the AVI/ASF files need to be re-encoded, but I was hoping for quick and easy app that would do it all for me (re-encode on the fly?) without much thinking.

If I can't find a good all-in-one app, do you recommend TMPGenc to encode and then TMPGenc DVD Author to author ?

Thanks