<p>I'm looking for a way (i.e. a particular software) to recreate the kind of DVD menus that were ubiquitous in the late 90s/early 2000s, the kind you would expect if you took your vacation tapes to a place that turned them into a DVD for you. I'm hoping not to mimic it visually with contemporary software—unless someone has a good tip how to do so—but instead use the actual process that these kinds of menus were created with.</p>

<p>This is also under the assumption that these were actually DVD menus: it occurred to me maybe it was the DVD players themselves that offered these menus as ways to navigate files on a disc? Perhaps someone can confirm.</p>

<p>Example:</p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/Wmb3T.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Wmb3T.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-07T23:16:01.023Z
On the DVD Recorder unit I had, these were definitely output as menus on the disc. TMPGenc Authoring Works has some pretty generic looking menu layouts, but if you want to match that exact look, you likely need to find/use one of these older units - I've never seen anything generate menus exactly like this outside of the recorder units themselves. Either that, or find software that lets you hand construct the menus.
Peter Barton
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-09T02:49:45.860Z
Thanks for the reply. When you mention DVD Recorders/units, do you mean like a DVD burner/duplicator tower? This would make sense, as one of the menus I'm trying to replicate is from a DVD I bought off eBay from a seller who has in stock thousands of sports matches. Presumably they use one of those machines.
sstaccato
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-09T10:11:23.987Z
I had a couple of stand alone HDD/DVD recorders that produced menus similar to this. They had analog inputs, would encode to MPG and store to HDD, and you could export the clips onto a DVD, with menus like this. I used to use them to transfer VHS tapes, there were lots of units around like this in the analog TV days. They slowly disappeared with digital TV (can't export copy protected material to DVD), and pretty much no one uses DVD-R to store video material like this these days.
Peter Barton
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-09T19:25:06.030Z
A point of clarification, please: Is your end goal an actual DVD (spinning plastic disk, read by laser) with DVD-style menus?  Or, are you planning to distribute online and are looking to use the old methods of DVD creation for visual authenticity?
Jason Conrad
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-10T14:25:49.750Z
Definitely the latter, but if I had to do the former (burn a disc) that would be fine. I wrote to the person I got the DVD from on eBay and they said they used a Panasonic DVD recorder, so I reckon that's the trick.
sstaccato
<software-recommendation><dvd>
Retro/90s/early 00s DVD menus
sstaccato
# Retro/90s/early 00s DVD menus

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-04-05)

I'm looking for a way (i.e. a particular software) to recreate the kind of DVD menus that were ubiquitous in the late 90s/early 2000s, the kind you would expect if you took your vacation tapes to a place that turned them into a DVD for you. I'm hoping not to mimic it visually with contemporary software—unless someone has a good tip how to do so—but instead use the actual process that these kinds of menus were created with.

This is also under the assumption that these were actually DVD menus: it occurred to me maybe it was the DVD players themselves that offered these menus as ways to navigate files on a disc? Perhaps someone can confirm.

Example:

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/Wmb3T.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/Wmb3T.png)

**Tags:** software-recommendation, dvd

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: On the DVD Recorder unit I had, these were definitely output as menus on the disc. TMPGenc Authoring Works has some pretty generic looking menu layouts, but if you want to match that exact look, you likely need to find/use one of these older units - I've never seen anything generate menus exactly like this outside of the recorder units themselves. Either that, or find software that lets you hand construct the menus.  
> **username_0**: Thanks for the reply. When you mention DVD Recorders/units, do you mean like a DVD burner/duplicator tower? This would make sense, as one of the menus I'm trying to replicate is from a DVD I bought off eBay from a seller who has in stock thousands of sports matches. Presumably they use one of those machines.  
> **username_1**: I had a couple of stand alone HDD/DVD recorders that produced menus similar to this. They had analog inputs, would encode to MPG and store to HDD, and you could export the clips onto a DVD, with menus like this. I used to use them to transfer VHS tapes, there were lots of units around like this in the analog TV days. They slowly disappeared with digital TV (can't export copy protected material to DVD), and pretty much no one uses DVD-R to store video material like this these days.  
> **username_2**: A point of clarification, please: Is your end goal an actual DVD (spinning plastic disk, read by laser) with DVD-style menus?  Or, are you planning to distribute online and are looking to use the old methods of DVD creation for visual authenticity?  
> **username_0**: Definitely the latter, but if I had to do the former (burn a disc) that would be fine. I wrote to the person I got the DVD from on eBay and they said they used a Panasonic DVD recorder, so I reckon that's the trick.  

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## 0 answers

