I'm assuming you don't have DVD-A then? It works very well and has AC3 but it is limited and different. Cost is a big factor as well. I like DVD Workshop from Ulead. It is a little more robust. If your looking for lower cost they have DVD Moviefactory. Interestingly enough for about the same money you can get Pinnacle Studio 8 which will do simple NLE as well as author and burn DVD's.
1) I started with NeoDVD which came with my Sony +RW burner (earlier adopter). It was simple, but wouldn't do the cool stuff. Plus, it re-rendered my files and introduced pixelation and major artifacts in all my SANs based fonts. It effectively took good content, and junked it up. It was free, but rather useless.
2) Second, I tried an older version of DVDit that I got for free while working with Motorola--but it wouldn't recognize my burner. So I re-purchased it--and only made one DVD with it, which two days to get correct so it would work. They should be shot!!! DVDIt SE, is a piece of garbage that crashes all the time, has an odd interface, won't accept most of my file formats (nothing seems to be close enough to the spec for it), and says my bit rate is too high (although the shareware program they recommend to check the bit rate says it is within spec). In addition, when it crashes...it crashes hard and sometimes requires a hard re-boot. Of course, most of the errors pop up AFTER it has spent an eternity processing your files--after which, it tells you about a problem...thanks a lot. To top it off, their tech support is not helpful--and they have never, ever responded to an e-mail (I think they are tired of putting their integrity on the line and having to support broken code). They are re-using old junk code and deserve to go out of business. I guess I have an opinon.
I later purchased MyDVD, thought it was from Adaptec, but it is the same SONIC group, but with new code. I haven't tried this yet. Primarily, because I picked up DVD Architect from SF.
3) I now use DVD Arichitect exclusively. Although DVD Architect has a few "non-standard" interface quarks (like clicking "edit" to edit the text, rather than the windows standard sloooowww double click and then edit, and the fact that many menu items are not on the top, but only show up within the right click, when you are in the correct mode (that is the problem, remembering which mode the option is in). Even still, it is easy to figure out and creates beautiful files. Mine still won't burn... (i assume it's a hardware/WinME problem), so I just make the file and use my DVD burning package to copy the files to the DVD and presto--works every time.