Standalone DVD Recorders and Leaving Space For Menus

[robjv1]

This may be a question that isn't necessary to ask -- perhaps standalone DVD recorders are already designed to compensate for the space in question (I've heard most of them only record up to about 4gigs and not beyond this, even when they report the disc as "full") but when using a standalone DVD-recorder that records with a VBR and has a "Free-Rate" setting to maximize the encoding rate for the length of the program so it fills the entire disc, do I need to try and not use the whole disc as to allow room for menus which might include graphics, motion and perhaps music? As a general room of thumb how much of the disc should be left empty for basic menus, or should I not really be concerned with this?

[oldandinthe way]

Most consumer grade DVD-recorders generate their own pedestrian menus.

Custom menus can be generated by ripping their output to a PC and reauthoring.