If you intend to edit the footage I would suggest you not burn them to DVD first. You would be converting the original AVI footage to highly compressed MPEG2 codec in the process. Compressing video to reduce file size does not squeeze the video but rather discards data. This data would be permanently lost and when you out put the footage to your destination format a great deal of quality would be lost, both video and audio. Do all your editing first and then put the finished product to DVD.
What kind of editing equipment do you have that requires the footage to be on a DVD? Are you looking to just cut and splice the footage or do you need a full edit with color correcting, transitions, titling, FX, soundtrack, and menus?