I downloaded an AVI file of the third episode of Lost for this season.
Here are the specs for the file.
The sound is noy synced. Is there a way to correct this or should I download another copy? So far I downloaded what I thought were two different versions of that episode and they had the same problem. No other episode has this issue. My guess is somebody fowled up this episode and a million people renamed it and stuck it on their xdcc server.
Anyway I'm in the queue for two or three other copies of the same file each one is a slightly different size. In the meantime, is there a way to correct this file?

$ file Lost.2x03.Orientation.HDTV.avi
Lost.2x03.Orientation.HDTV.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 608 x
336, 23.98 fps, video: XviD, audio: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (stereo, 48000 Hz)


Now, I see its an mpeg with the avi wrapper. Should I convert it to
pure mpeg?

I tried making a SVCD out of this file too, and the picture is squashed
from the sides, the people are thin... and I don't mean Hollywood
thin!
Thats my second question, how would I be able to make a respectable
SVCD out of this?

You have a MPEG-4 video with MP3 sound in avi container. Since both are lossy codecs every re-coding should be avoided. I'd recommend Avidemux. Open the file, adjust time shift, save. (Leave both audio and vido to 'copy').
I do not think SVCD can be respectable. It even does not allow this high resolution AFAIK. Not to mention this means re-encoding (= more quality loss).