Well if you want to keep it cheap and are using XP Home SP2 (or higher
/ later)might I suggest Windows Movie Maker for editing and then
freeware software called D2MP [1] (actually a suite of programs inter
dependant programs) that will compile an ISO image file that can then
be burnt with Nero.

Jerry, I have XP Pro SP2 32 bit. I have recently done a clean install
of this to a new 500gb hard drive. I have about 380GB free space on
this drive and I have a few more drives too with free space.

Hardware is all fine, I've been through and checked everything up to
date drivers no conflicts hardware wise no video card problems drivers
are up to date. I have DirectX 9.0c.

I don't think I would want to use Windows Movie Maker because it is
very buggy and unstable. At least it was when I last tried it about a
year ago. I don't think it is powerful enough for what I want to do.

As is always the case with video content / DVD authoring, the better
your computer spec' and the more HDD (non boot drive) storage you have
the quicker and less problematic the process will be - could it be
that your problems are hardware rather than software related?

Nope.

John