Hey guys I was wondering what the best/cheapest standalone recorder is for vhs to dvd? Do I need to use my PC if I want to make menus, or do some standalones have this feature? Thanks a lot for all your help. :)

You'll need to decide, do you want the best, or do you want the cheapest. The answer will be different in each case.

DVD recorders provide a stock menu which has been adequate for my needs. The three different Panasonic models I have all have hard disk drives and provide a similar menu, showing up to eight titles per screen. Thirty titles require four screens. Each title has a custom thumbnail and a name.

If that is not adequate, then I guess you could use the PC. I've not used a PC since my first unsuccessful attempt 4 years ago.

If all you are going to do is copy vhs to dvd, I wonder why. How many times do you plan to watch it? Why not watch it from tape? And note, some commecial tapes are copy-protected.

What I am leading up to is that a dvd recorder with a hard drive allows an awful lot of editting, skipping, selecting, resequencing, combining scenes from any or multiple titles on the hard drive into one or more titles on the dvd. A lot of flexibility. If you have home videos, this is an excellent tool.

If, on the other hand, you are going to go one for one tape to dvd, go for el cheapo, as described in other threads. But again, why bother?

Richard