I'm new to VMS and I've made several music videos that all have some sort of audio compression or something that makes them sound pretty bad. I've made sure my audio levels aren't red lining before I render. I use the MPEG-2 for DVDA template and a separate .wav file for the audio (48khz, PCM) when I "make movie". My latest clue was when I did some voice over using my cheepo mic and that audio was really bad when played in my home DVD player. Kindof sounded like the two stereo tracks were canceling each other out (it's a mono microphone). Virtually nothing came through. I had my home stereo set to "stereo" mode when I did all this. I tried the Dolby 5.1 setting and it sounded good except there was nothing coming out of the woofer. My voice over track came out on the center channel loud and clear. I should also note that the audio sounds fine when I play the DVD on my computer.

Is there something "magic" that I need to do when I render to get "CD quality" sounds on my home DVD player?? Is there any way to get the AC3 encoder w/o spending all that money on Vegas 5?

Thanks for any help!!