I've been trying to encode a XviD encoded avi video to mpeg 2 dvd d1 (ntsc) with avidemux on my slackware distro, with mixed results. First off here are my settings:
version 2.0.34

Video:
- vfilter DVD Resize to NTSC res
- vprocess on
- XSVCD- lavcodec with single pass and 8000 bitrate
- change fps from 25.0000 to 29.97 (ntsc)

Audio:
- ffmpeg (mp2) stereo 128kps
- vprocess on

I then went to file, save, save video, and saved my video as video.m2v.
I then went to audio, save audio, and saved it as audio.mp2
After encoding I opened the video.m2v file in avidemux and then indexed it with mpeg audio, because I would add that later. I then went to audio, source, and added my external mp2 audio from audio,mp2. I then turned off aprocess and vprocess and then went to save as DVD PS, and saved it as video.mpg. I then tried playing it and noticed a few problems:
- The video quality of the encoded mpeg is not as good as the original avi, even though I had a high bitrate. Why is this and what can I do to fix it?
- The audio would just cut out after a short amount of time... I tried playing audio.mp2 and it played fine all the way through. What is wrong here?

What should I change in my process so I can successfully create an mpeg 2 dvd file from an avi?
Thanks.

I don't have much experience with avidemux, aside from a few failed attempts to get DVD-compliant output from it. If you're willing to try other utilities, might I shamelessly suggest a little script suite I wrote called tovid? It can convert just about any video format to DVD-compliant MPEG, with quite good quality.

Thanks alot! I will try that out! I'm just looking for a good linux app to encode to dvd mpeg 2 so I can encode files faster (drop back to Fluxbox or something).

Alright, I tried tovid and really like it except for 1 problem- The output file doesn't exist!
Here is my konsole output, rendering the video Car.avi to Car.mpg:
What do I need to do to make it actually output a file?

Well, as you can see, there are still some bugs

To find out what went wrong, try running the script again with the -debug option. When it exits, you should have a .log file containing a lot of output. Check in there to see where it failed (you can email it to me, wapcaplet99 at yahoo dot com, and I'll try to help).

Also, if you haven't already, check to make sure you have the required programs for running tovid. If you use the 'configure' script that is provided, it will check your installation to see what you have and don't have.

The same thing happens to me:
No output file.

Not sure why the codecs dir was not found? I tried playing the avi with Mplayer and it played fine.
I need help! I tried Avidemux but I have found it to be too buggy for my liking.
Any ideas?!
I ran a debug and this is what I get:

CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon MP/XP Thoroughbred 2173 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 1)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /home/inferno/.mplayer/config
Reading /home/inferno/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/home/inferno/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 73 audio & 180 video codecs
Failed to open /dev/rtc: No such file or directory (it should be readable by the user.)
Using usleep() timing
Can't open input config file /home/inferno/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
Can't init input joystick
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0 : No such file or directory
Setting up LIRC support...
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support.
You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing Short.avi.
AVI file format detected.
VIDEO: [DX50] 512x288 24bpp 23.976 fps 948.9 kbps (115.8 kbyte/s)