Using my own menu with a stand alone recorder?

[pduck]

Is there any way that I can use my own menu on a DVD recorded with a stand alone recorder?

I often send DVDs of videos that I have done to clients. Right now, I create the menu in Photoshop, export my video from Final Cut Pro and author the DVD with DVD Studio Pro. This is pretty time consuming, especially the exporting part. It would be nice to be able to use a stand alone DVD recorder, but I'd like to use a menu that I have designed (with my logo, etc.) Are there any recorders on the market that would let me do this? (I'm not looking for sophisticated authoring here, just a straight copy)

Thanks.

[gshelley61]

Sure you can. Use the standalone DVD recorder as a hardware capturing and encoding device that just happens to save your finished DVD-Video compliant files to optical disc (I use DVD-RW's). Then, just copy those files to your computer's hard drive and use whatever DVD authoring application you like for custom menus, etc. You may want to join and rename the VOB files as a single MPG first, but many authoring apps will accept VOB's just as they are (TMPGenc DVD Author is one of them). Light I and P frame editing and chapter selection can be done, too. No re-encoding is necessary and it is a fairly easy and quick process.

For frame accurate MPEG2 editing without re-encoding, use MPEG-VCR or MPEG Video Wizard.

[pduck]

Sure you can. Use the standalone DVD recorder as a hardware capturing and encoding device that just happens to save your finished DVD-Video compliant files to optical disc (I use DVD-RW's). Then, just copy those files to your computer's hard drive and use whatever DVD authoring application you like for custom menus, etc. You may want to join and rename the VOB files as a single MPG first, but many authoring apps will accept VOB's just as they are (TMPGenc DVD Author is one of them). Light I and P frame editing and chapter selection can be done, too. No re-encoding is necessary and it is a fairly easy and quick process.

For frame accurate MPEG2 editing without re-encoding, use MPEG-VCR or MPEG Video Wizard.

Thanks, gshelley. That might save a little time, but not much. I'm talking about video that I have shot with my camcorder, captured into my computer and edited. It's already in the digital state, but in the DV format, not mpeg2. When I export from Final Cut Pro, the video gets converted at that time. With your method, I would need to burn two DVDs which would offset any time savings gained by not exporting.

What I would like to do is just play my video from the FCP timeline straight into a stand alone DVD recorder. Is there any way to download a graphic into a DVD recorder that I can use as a template for a menu? Do any DVD recorders have that as a feature?

Thanks

[Neuron]

Here is my approach if I really need some fancy menus.

1. Record video material on DVD video recorder's HDD. (JVC DR-MH30 in my case)
2. Make all necessary editing stuff on the recorder's HDD using its own editing interface.
3. Record final edited material from HDD to DVD-RAM (VR mode only possible).
4. Use DVD-RAM capable DVD-ROM drive (Pioneer 107D in my case) to copy crated VRO file from DVD-RAM to your PC's Hard Drive.
5. Rename file extension from ".VRO" to ".MPG".
6. Use DVD-lab Pro for file demuxing, chapters creation, menus creation and final DVD structure compilation.
7. When DVD compilation completed - use your preferred DVD burning program (Nero in my case) to burn DVD structure onto DVD-R or DVD+R disc.

The menus creation and compilation processes usually take for me about an hour.

Try it - you'll love it. Very easy and straight forward.

PS: You can use DVD-RW disc instead of DVD-RAM disc.

[trhouse]

Sounds like what you want to do is replace the DVD Studio Pro encoder with the hardware encoder in a recorder to speed up the process. Have you looked into faster MAC mpeg encoders? I think MainConcept has one which can be faster than realtime.

[lordsmurf]

No, you cannot. Simple answer.
If you want fancy menus, use the computer.

[dipstick]

Another thing to consider here, is how the video is exported from PC to DVD recorder. If you're using anything other than firewire, then you're converting from Digital to Analog and back to Digital. Not the best method at all. You're much better off keeping it on the PC where it remains Digital.