Suggestions re. my editing method please.

[gsh]

I am compiling a DVD of miscellaneous clips, and I want to add titles and fade outs to each. All the clips have been ripped from DVDs, so I'm starting with m2v video files. I understand that this isn't the best/easiest format to edit, but I have a number of limitations, most notably the source material and using ME, so I'm limited to files under 4GB.
All clips have been ripped and the audio is synched/edited to match them.
The software that I have at my disposal is Adobe Premiere try-out, Vegas 4 (neither of which will import the m2v files) and Win DVD Creator 2. WinDVD seems to be able to handle the modest tasks I'm after, but there is a snag. I add a fade out (actually cross fade as there doesn't appear to be the option to just fade to black) to the next title screen, but the audio gets cut off abruptly at the start of the fade. (After I spent all the time adding fades to the audio!) I have checked in the options, and tried again with the "allow overwriting of narration" and "allow overwriting of background music" unchecked, but the same thing happens.
Now to my real question - the obvious workaround would be to add the fade to the individual clip sans audio, then import that clip and use it in the final movie with titles and audio added. This works, but the quality loss from the re-encoding is noticeable (I have saved it as DVD HQ mpeg). WinDVD creator can also save the file as DV1 avi. Would there be less quality loss if I save the clips in this format, and then use the AVIs in the final movie? I'll have to make 2 or 3 to get around the file size limitation, but that can be sorted when authoring the DVD.
I'm just dipping my toes in with the editing malarky, so for the time being I don't want/can't afford to spend a bunch of cash on upgrading my pc or on software, although further down the line I certainly will.
Any advice/tips would be appreciated.

[daamon]

Hi gsh,

I'm not too familiar with this, but will try to help based on what I've seen in other threads...

As you say, editing with M2Vs is tricky - and that's just basic trimming etc. As for fades, I'm not surprised that you're encountering problems.

You could look into Womble MPEG-VCR to see if that'll do the fades and keep the audio in synch - it's regularly recommended here for work with MPEGs (M2Vs).

Or, you could use something like DVD2AVI to get the footage into AVI where you'll have a lot less / no problems with fades and audio synch. Premiere accepts AVIs no problem.

If you find that the AVI is too large, it may be uncompressed. If you can, set DVD2AVI (or whatever) to use a DV codec to get DV AVI. Good ones are either the Canopus DV Codec or the Panasonic DV Codec - both free. As a guide, DV AVI is approximately 13.5Gb per hour.

Once done, simply encode your finished project that's in AVI to MPEG2 for DVD.

Hope that helps some. Good luck...

[gsh]

Thanks for the advice - I downloaded the trial of MPEG Video Wizard (which I understand is thereplacement for MPEG VCR) and it indeed does everything I want. I didn't realise that it would re-encode all clips to the same aspect ratio (duh) before I set it to export the mpeg, so it's 7 hours in and only 30% complete! However, I'll let it finish and check the result for synch and quality before trying different methods.