Looking for a dvd recorder that let's create custom menus like the Toshiba RD-XS55. I read somewhere (can't remember) that the Toshiba's dvd recorders let's you take an image of what you have recorded and use it as a background for you custom menu. I'm looking for something similar like that. Was the Toshiba's the only dvd recorder that did this? Thanks all.

Not that this helps you, but most folks find that they prefer to use a PC and some dedicated software to create custom menus. I really like TMPGEnc-Author.
I just copy my recordings to PC and re-author with nice menus, then burn. I use RAM discs for the transfer to PC, but RW discs will work too. This also lets me change the aspect flag to 16:9 and create an anamorphic video.

I believe it would be easier for me (rookie) to use the actual dvd recorder do the menus. Not knowing how hard the Toshiba models would be, but from one thread I read about (can't remember where) they said that they created nice menus from the dvd images of the actual movie. That's what i'm looking for, a dvd recorder (reasonable price) that can do this. Thanks for the response.

I apoligize if I'm way off base on this one, but by menu's, are you refering to thumbnails? If so Panasonics have (for at least the last 4 years) allowed you to change the picture in the thumbnail. You can use any scene in the program. Since I am not aware of the Toshiba your are refering to, if it actually let you make menu's like a professional dvd, that would be cool. According to Wabjxo, on another post, the Philips 3575 hdd dvdr, also lets a person change the photo in the thumbnail on recorded dvd's.

I apoligize if I'm way off base on this one, but by menu's, are you refering to thumbnails? If so Panasonics have (for at least the last 4 years) allowed you to change the picture in the thumbnail. You can use any scene in the program. Since I am not aware of the Toshiba your are refering to, if it actually let you make menu's like a professional dvd, that would be cool. According to Wabjxo, on another post, the Philips 3575 hdd dvdr, also lets a person change the photo in the thumbnail on recorded dvd's.
Thanks jjeff, but what i was referring to was that the Toshiba let's you take a snapshot of whatever you recorded and use that for the background of the dvd. The actual buttons of the dvd menu would be the thumbnails, which I can change that with my Pioneer 633, but have to use the 4 or 5 templates background picture it has. Hope you understand.

Thanks jjeff, but what i was referring to was that the Toshiba let's you take a snapshot of whatever you recorded and use that for the background of the dvd. The actual buttons of the dvd menu would be the thumbnails, which I can change that with my Pioneer 633, but have to use the 4 or 5 templates background picture it has. Hope you understand.

Not very good examples here but if you mean this for titles:

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb143/nextoo/Title.jpg

And this for chapters:

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb143/nextoo/Chapter.jpg

Then you are correct. Only the Toshiba XS series offers this type of customization. It's actually much easier than using a PC. The Toshiba XS series did a great job of bringing PC capabilities to the DVD recorder for things like this.

Not very good examples here but if you mean this for titles:

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb143/nextoo/Title.jpg

And this for chapters:

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb143/nextoo/Chapter.jpg

Then you are correct. Only the Toshiba XS series offers this type of customization. It's actually much easier than using a PC. The Toshiba XS series did a great job of bringing PC capabilities to the DVD recorder for things like this.
Yes this is what i'm talking about. Is it only the Toshiba models? or is there another brand that does the same. thanks

Yes this is what i'm talking about. Is it only the Toshiba models? or is there another brand that does the same. thanks
No. Just the XS series Toshibas. Meaning the XS32,34,35,52,54,55. And the KX50 which is the XS52 with an 80GB HDD.

I have a similar need. Basically, I'm making DVDs at a live event straight off the camera/camcorder.

I'd like the DVDs to be somewhat more "polished" than just using the generic background. In a perfect world, I'd want to be able to setup my DVD similar to an authoring tool on the PC:
- setup the menu's background image
- create a custom "button" template (for menu choices)
- setup an intro clip (possibly)
- have other additional content pre-loaded (and rendered) on the menu
- when I press "record" is just creates an additional menu item, and I can set that as the "default/starting" menu when the disc is inserted
- fast-finalization

Anything on the market doing this kind of thing?

I tried searching for the Toshiba XS's, but they seem hard to come by!

Help!
:-) Rob

Nope. Gone. Never again.

Resign yourself to using a PC, or go drop a bundle on a used XS Toshiba. Be prepared to replace the Toshiba burner every few months if you go that route, and note even Toshibas don't let you import your own custom template. What you're talking about really requires an interactive computer with authoring software: the primary purpose of even the most advanced standalone recorders is to conveniently timeshift and archive broadcast material.

Nope. Gone. Never again.

Resign yourself to using a PC, or ...

Problem is that this recording is "live" at an event where multiple performers perform in succession.. and each one is taking home his/her DVDs minutes after the performance. Thus recording from camera direct to DVD.

The PC scenario you're refering to would (seems to me) look like:
- Setup the project in advance in the authoring tool with background/themes, extra footage, etc.
- [BEGIN REPEATING BLOCK]
- Capture to the PC
- Drag the captured file into the project
- Choose the option to PREPARE the disc image and then burn it
- [REPEAT]

The drag, prepare and burn would take too much time in this environment (manual processes) Direct shoot to burn is the way to go (real-time).

FYI, I use DVD Architect 4.5

>Be prepared to replace the Toshiba burner every few months
>if you go that route,

Why's that? And can I stick any burner in there (e.g. same kind as in a PC)?

>and note even Toshibas don't let you import your own custom template.

But they do a custom menu background, yes?

>the primary purpose of even the most advanced standalone
>recorders is to conveniently timeshift and archive broadcast
>material.

I don't doubt my need is specialized.. that's why I'm talking to you guys! :-)


More ideas? Please?!

Fwiw, the custom menu background picture feature is nice, but it doesn't seem to capture pictures at a particularly high quality. I know this is usually not the bottleneck if you are capturing a frame of a typical dvd recording. However, I've also experimented with feeding it a still frame of a pristine looking jpg, and the captured result (at very high bitrate setting) was still noticeably degraded from the original. It's kind of a shame, and I don't expect there is a workaround for this. Even the captured segment looks better (clean as you would expect for bitrate setting) than the "snapshot".

So like I was saying, the menu background pic is a neat feature (I use it often), but don't expect pristine results, even if you are able to supply pristine level material to derive the snapshots.

It is interesting to read, however, that Tosh seems to have the best in menu authoring features out of all brands, short of going to a full pc-authoring suite.

Thank you for clarifying your exact needs, we can now give better advice. For your purposes the only thing that comes close is a second-hand Toshiba. You will be able to quickly capture a background image for the menu screen, create visual chapter buttons, and finalize the discs on the fly. It won't be quite as nice as a PC authored disc but it will be way better than any other DVD recorder can create. Only Toshiba XS machines had this feature, to this day people are astonished they could provide so much authoring functionality- no other recorder mfr has even attempted it.

Unfortunately Toshibas with the authoring feature had fragile burners that often break down at the worst possible time: this is a HUGE drawback to using one for live event recording. The burners can be replaced with more reliable drives from a couple of other mfrs but there is a very limited number of compatible drives and you need to be aware of possible limitations when using them. There are two or three threads here at AVS giving detailed info, look thru those for more perspective. You might be able to leave the replacement burner outside the recorder chassis, so if it breaks on location swapping in a new one would go quicker.

The failure rate was high in early models of Toshiba DVD recorders. There was a thread a few years back that looked into this. It was found that much of the problem with drive failure was because the optical drive was at full lens power even when not in use. This created heat which led to optical drive failure. This was addressed in subsequent XS series models.

That being said optical drives will fail. Across brands and models.

Its menu capababilities is on of the reasons I bought a Toshiba RD-XS35. In addition to what Citibear mentions, it also lets you choose font and selected item color, include an black or white underlay for your thumbnails and titles, with a choice between 50% and 90% opacity, so they stand out from your background, and choose if you want a menu with titles, chapters, both or none. It also lets you specify the all-important aspect ratio. Here are a few items from the manual about creating menus:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/p_l/Toshp119.jpg


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/p_l/Toshp120.jpg


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/p_l/Toshp122.jpg


Just don't be surprised if the burner gives up the ghost and you have to replace it. For a DVD recorder, it has pretty sophisticated menu options, but if you're really serious about menus, use your 'puter (http://forum.videohelp.com/topic247498.html).

candlelight, sounds like that if you go the Toshiba route, you had better have two, one for a backup, if the first one craps out on you.

Problem is that this recording is "live" at an event where multiple performers perform in succession.. and each one is taking home his/her DVDs minutes after the performance. Thus recording from camera direct to DVD.

The PC scenario you're refering to would (seems to me) look like:
- Setup the project in advance in the authoring tool with background/themes, extra footage, etc.
- [BEGIN REPEATING BLOCK]
- Capture to the PC
- Drag the captured file into the project
- Choose the option to PREPARE the disc image and then burn it
- [REPEAT]

The drag, prepare and burn would take too much time in this environment (manual processes) Direct shoot to burn is the way to go (real-time).

FYI, I use DVD Architect 4.5

>Be prepared to replace the Toshiba burner every few months
>if you go that route,

Why's that? And can I stick any burner in there (e.g. same kind as in a PC)?

>and note even Toshibas don't let you import your own custom template.

But they do a custom menu background, yes?

>the primary purpose of even the most advanced standalone
>recorders is to conveniently timeshift and archive broadcast
>material.

I don't doubt my need is specialized.. that's why I'm talking to you guys! :-)


More ideas? Please?!

I've done real time event videography and am a DVD recorder fan but these two things don't mix very well in my opinion. Besides being a pain to lug around to different events, I agree with Citibear and others here who doubt that the DVD recorder route will meet your needs primarily because of reliability (DVD recorders are notoriously glitchy when it comes to real time capture via the analog inputs or even firewire) and they tend to be less reliable when trying to crank out multiple DVDs (even from their HDD), finally I'm not sure I agree with you that trying to set up a custom menu on a DVD recorder would be a time saver vs. quick and dirty authoring on a PC, besides even the most basic DVD authoring program menus would blow away even the Toshiba from a profession aesthetics perspective. I won't even get into issues related to finalizing and questionable universal playback compatibility of DVD recorder produced DVDs. I think there are several other alternatives that may be more suitable.

First, have you tried a DVD camcorder and just handing the guests the DVDs? Maybe a little more expensive and perhaps some compatibility issues but its essentially real time capture to DVD, which is what you want.

Alternatively you can use a DVD camcorder or other tapeless camcorder (flash media or HDD) which eliminates the real time capture TIME problem because you are just dragging and dropping the event file from the camcorder storage source to your laptop PC. Use a minimally featured, quick and dirty editing, authoring, burning program (one stop program) such as Ulead DVD Movie Factory or MUVEE to crank out the DVD's. To provide more time efficient workflow you can swap memory cards or DVDs and have the PC crank out the authoring/burn while you are recording the next person.

The third alternative (probably the best in terms of efficient workflow) is real time, live capture directly to a laptop. There are several inexpensive real-time USB or firewire capture devices on the market that accept analog and/or digital (i.e., firewire) inputs. This would probably be your best bet vs. real time, live capture to a DVD recorder. Use the same streamlined editing/authoring/burning apps as I previously mentioned and you should be good to go.

Hope this helps in giving you some ideas for alternatives to using a DVD recorder which I think (even if you can get your hands on one) will give you more grief than delight in doing what you want to do because you will be under extreme pressure to produce in real-time (in other words, there is no margin for error in your situation you will either be praised as a hero miracle worker or derided as an incompetent fool if you don't produce the goods, there is really no in between here because if you fail to produce even one of those DVDs because of a recorder glitch you are toast). But I wish you good luck in whatever path you finally choose.

Oh, and by the way, your particular need is indeed a very specialized use of a DVD recorder.

Good luck, HTH.