preparing video clip for editing in adobe premiere and burning to a dvd

[namreeb808]

Greetings.

I have a rather lengthy video clip downloaded from the internet (no, its not a pirated movie and yes the copyright allows what I am trying to do). I have found it in three different formats, which are, according to GSpot v2.70a:

XviD 1.1.2 Final / MPEG-1 Layer 3 @ 717Mb
XviD 1.1.2 Final / Dolby AC3 @ 2.15Gb
DivX 5/6 / MPEG-1 Layer 3 @ 3.02Gb

None of the originals appear to have a lip sync issue. However I seem to have problems with all three of them.

When I open the XviD / MP3 (717Mb) file, Adobe Premiere (Pro CS5) incorrectly identifies the audio as 11025Hz mono, when in fact it is 44100Hz stereo (again, according to GSpot).
When I open the DivX / MP3 (3.02Gb) file, same result.
When I open the XviD / AC3 (2.15Gb) file, I get no audio. I understand that Premiere does not natively support AC3, but there are ways to make it do so.

Based on my previous (admittedly limited) experience, I presume that I need to re-encode one of these three with VirtualDub (or something similar, but I've used VirtualDub in the past).

The reason for loading this in Adobe Premiere is that I am taking an indie film and removing vulgarity from it for purposes of showing to a small group of people in a private residence.

My questions are:

1) Which of the three files is ideal for converting?
2) Which video / audio compression should I use, given that ultimately this will be burned onto a DVD?
3) If the methods mentioned are not natively supported by VirtualDub, what must I do to add them? I've downloaded quite a few plugins for VirtualDub from http://home.comcast.net/~fcchandler/index.html but my options in the Audio and Video compression menus are unchanged (though its completely possible I am doing something wrong).

[davexnet]

Vulgarity ? Are you removing whole scenes (audio and video) or are you just editing the audio to remove language?

[namreeb808]

Both. I am also recording sound bytes to replace the dialog I take where it is crucial to the scene.

[davexnet]

In general, convert the audio to PCM and remux it back in the avi instead of the mp3 /ac3.

Then edit he new avi in Adobe.