You say you have created an mpeg-2 of your project combining the AVCHD and Cinepak .avi's... With Video Studio open, can you right click on that mpeg-2 file either in the timeline or in the library window, and copy ALL its properties here please.
I ask because in your latest post, you say the 'new mpegs are m2ts files'. The problem with that is that .m2ts files are NOT mpeg-2s but high definition mpeg-4 files converted using the difficult AVC/H.264 codec. But if in fact you have converted your project to a new .m2ts file, and managed to incorporate what are fairly low quality and strange format size Cinepak files, that is probably the wrong workflow if you are intending to burn a standard definition DVD, which is what I understand you are trying to do.
A brief word about the Cinepak files: they are not consistent or compliant with the international DVD standard for several reasons. First, they are not mpeg-2. Second, they are not the right frame size for a DVD which would need to be either (full frame) 720 x 480 for NTSC or 360 x 240 for half frame size. And the speed is wrong -- about half the required speed for NTSC DVD which is 29.97 fps, whereas your Cinepak files are only 15 fps. So when they are converted, as they have to be, Video Studio in effect has to invent 40 horizontal pixels out of thin air, and also invent roughly 15 new frames per second to get them up to DVD standard speed. I know you said you have used them before, but I don't believe their quality after conversion would be particularly good. I might also note that I find it just a little strange that you should be blending extremely high quality AVCHD files with fairly low quality Cinepak ones... But each to his own, I guess!!
Now back to the main point, if you have a project made up of m2ts files and these Cinepak files in the timeline, and intend to burn a standard definition DVD, then you would first convert the project to a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 -- which is what you originally suggested you had done, but I now have my doubts. The command you would have to use would be Share > Create Video File > DVD. You haven't told us how long you project is, but if it is an hour or less, then that command will produce a high quality standard definition mpeg-2 which can be burned to DVD without further conversion.
However, if your project is longer than 1 hour, then you will need to use a different command: Share > Create Video File > Custom. A dialogue box will appear, and if you click on the Options button, you can change the properties of the mpeg-2 file you are producing. If your project is, say, around 90 minutes long, then you would need to go to the Compression tab on the new dialogue box which appears when you click Options, and change the bitrate to around 6000 kbps from the default 8000 kbps. And if it is around 2 hours, then the bitrate will have to be lowered still further to 4000 kbps. If you change the audio format on that same Compression page to, say, Dolby, then you will be able to squeeze another 10 minutes or so of video on the disc.
Now to the question of 4:3 as opposed to 16:9 (widescreen) which is on the General tab on that dialogue box. Your original m2ts files from the camera are most definitely 16:9, which is a good, high quality thing. There is simply little point in changing this to 4:3 if, as I suspect, 90% or more of the project is made up of the m2ts files. At best, changing the aspect ratio to 4:3 will put big wide black bars above and below the video, cutting down the size of the video image on screen. And if you and your friends have widescreen TVs, then you are wasting space. If you leave it in its native 16:9 format, then your eventual DVD will fill a widescreen TV screen. At worst, the widescreen original video could be squeezed horizontally, so that everyone and everything in it looks too tall and thin!
The Cinepak videos are likely to suffer in all this since they will almost undoubtedly be in 4:3 format. But you will have guessed by now that I don't think all that highly of them (admittedly sight unseen) and I certainly would not be reducing the quality of my final DVD to the lowest common denominator which they represent in your project. I would be trying to maintain the highest quality, come what may, given that you are dealing mostly with highest quality AVCHD!
Anyway, you adjust the bitrate as suggested above and set the aspect ratio to 16:9. You give your file a name, and let it do its thing. Even though your computer is up to the job, converting AVCHD/m2ts files is incredibly demanding of computer resources, and takes some considerable time -- I would think about four times the length of your project to convert.
After you produce your new mpeg-2, you go to File > New Project. Don't worry about giving your new project a name. The objective is just to clear the timeline of your current project.
Once that is done, you select Share > Create Disc > DVD. The burning module will open. Use the Add Media button at the top to insert your new mpeg-2 in the burning timeline. Then go to the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen. There is a little box beside the words 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files'. Make sure that box is ticked (it usually is by default). That way, your already compliant mpeg file will not be re-encoded. Then build your menus and burn.
And finally, a footnote about your audio problem. MP3 is not a particularly good format for working with Video Studio. VS has problems with certain mp3 codecs, the LameMP3 one in particular. So it is much better to use standard .wav format for any of your audio. It is also better to use a third party audio editor to trim, edit and otherwise play around with your audio before inserting it in VS. Yes, .wav files are large, but if you are using the Dolby codec as I suggest above, the large original .wav files will be compressed into smaller Dolby files when you are producing your DVD compatible mpeg-2.
Let us know how you get on!
