I wonder if anyone can help me with some queries I have regarding my
attempts at digital recording.

Anything I record and burn as a DVD in Nero 6 invariably winds up with the
sound perceptibly out of sync with the vision, (despite not a single frame
being dropped in an hour's worth of recording) although anything recorded as
a VCD and SVCD appears to be OK.

If I then convert 'any' saved files with the Divx converter, then the audio
on the resulting .divx file is wildly out of sync, by as much as several
seconds!

I've downloaded a programme called VirtualDub, which can allegedly fix audio
sync problems, however when I enter the audio interleaving mode the audio
skew correction box only gives details about 'delaying' the soundtrack (by
virtue of typing a desired number of milliseconds into a box) although it
does also display the information "Use 'positive values' if the audio is
playing too early or 'negative values' if the audio is playing too late".
but what exactly does this mean?.. I've tried adding a plus or minus sign in
front of say a 1000 ms to see what happens, however after the saving the
file and then rechecking I then find that the number of milliseconds I
entered has reverted to back to zero and the saved file has not been
altered. TIA