Page 1 of DVD Recorder - can you create menus?

I am thinking of purchasing a DVD recorder for backing up home vids, but I have some quiries.

Does a basic (ie none HDD) dvd recorder have the facility for creating menus? or is it like a video tape, auto play on startup?

Does a dvd player with HDD alow you to create menus? Menus with your own pictures?

Or should I just get a Decent TV capture card and plug in my video, convert to mpeg and then to DVD - I have decent DVD recording software just not a decent TV Card (the one I have is 8yrs old)

(Put this in the wrong forum - sorry)

What you could do is put them on a disc using the dvd recorder, and then put the discs in the pc and edit them. That`s what I do if I want something a bit more special.

My dvd recorder (Mico) does a basic menu, but it is a pain labelling things with the dvd remote on it (you have to scroll up through the whole alphabet to get the letter you want).

Most dvd recorders should have a simpler way of titling the disc (my Pioneer does).

But the only thing you need a PC for is to create menus.

All dvd recorders and HDD/DVDR`s offer fairly basic menu options.

Toshiba has the best options as you can create a chapter menu aswell as title menu.
Thats something other set tops cant do,and the Tosh will allow you to use a screengrab as menu background.

As the other poster said,more sophisticated stuff needs a PC and software,but I used Nero and TBH it wasn`t worth the bother simply to have fancy menus.

Its wasting time burning the disc twice

My Panasonic allows me to choose a still or the image on each title, and to edit names as required. It shows eight images/titles on screen at a time.

It is s freeview tuner -and will automatically put the program name as the title, Otherwise it defaults to date and time of recording being made. These can be edited to whatever you want though.

My Pioneer also allows you to choose a still for the titles,but the Tosh lets you use a screengrab as background picture for your titles or chapters.

Neither Panny or Pioneer create chapter menus

This item was edited on Saturday, 17th March 2007, 21:52