...as an avi file coded as XVID Mpeg4 file...
You are not alone...
All of the highly compressed formats seem to cause lots of trouble.
The audio is mpeg (mp1/mp2)...
Video Studio can usually handle MPEG-2 audio. ...I'm not sure about MPEG-1 audio. Maybe it's just having trouble because it's multiplexed into an Xvid file...
If I use the basic Windows Movie Maker that comes with Windows XP the audio on the exported video file is correct.... Is there a fix otherwise the program is useless...
If you are planning of doing lots of Xvid editing, you are probably better-off staying with Movie Maker, or looking for a special-purpose Xvid editor.* (In fact, I use a special-purpose MPEG-2 editor.)
...A couple of things you can try with
SUPER (a FREE universal-conversion program):
Use SUPER to convert your AVI/Xvid to a WAV file (audio only). Bring that WAV file into Video Studio and use it as your soundtrack. (Consult the Video Studio User Manual for details.)
Or, use SUPER to convert the AVI/Xvid to MPEG-2 with MPEG-2 audio. If you are doing any editing, you will want to keep the audio & video together in the same file. But, I will pre-warn you that even MPEG-2 can
sometimes cause trouble too.
* Note - Even with a special-purpose editor, none of these compressed formats were originally designed to be edited or converted. They all use lossy compression, which means that data is thrown-away (and quality/detail is lost) during compression.
When professional DVDs are made, all editing is done with uncompressed files (or with film). MPEG-2 compression is is done as (almost) the last step!
Most "real editing" (transitions, text-overlays, cropping, color adjustment, etc.) requires the file to be de-compressed and re-compressed. You loose quality with the 2nd compression.
When you convert from one compressed format to another, this also requires an extra (lossy) compression step.
