Best 5 DVD Menu Creators to Make Custom DVD Menus (Free Incl.)

I often reminisce about the days of watching DVDs with awesome menus pages - those motion backgrounds, intro music, bonus features and so on. While DVDs have been on the decline for years in the era of streaming services, there will always be individuals who want to create their own DVDs from precious videos. And a well-designed DVD menu can definitely add a special touch to your video DVD and enhance the viewing experience, particularly when giving DVDs as gift.

In this guide, we will explore some of the best DVD menu creators that allow you to make professional-looking custom menus on your PC or Mac.

What's a DVD Menu and How to Create a Menu-based DVD

Understanding DVD Menu

A DVD menu serves as a navigation page that enables viewers to select specific contents on a DVD. It provides a user-friendly interface with options such as play, title selection, subtitle preference, and more. In the past when DVDs were popular, DVD menus went beyond mere navigation screens; they showcased creativity with various features like (unskippable) animated intros, bonus contents and even games! But in recent years, most DVDs and Blu-ray discs tend to offer more simplified DVD menus with basic buttons and still images.

How to Create a DVD Menu

The best way to make a DVD menu is to use a DVD authoring software with a DVD menu creator feature, providing ready-made templates and handy tools to customize DVD menus and burn them to DVD seamlessly. Many popular DVD authoring programs like Adobe Encore and iDVD (Mac) have been discontinued for years, but there are still some great tools for you to choose from, both free and paid. Read on to learn more about these best DVD menu creators and how to use them.

Top 5 DVD Menu Creators for Windows and Mac

1. iFunia DVD Creator - Top Option

Supported OS: Windows 11/10/8/7; macOS 10.11 or later

Price: Free trial available; $24.99/month, $59.99/lifetime license

iFunia DVD Creator is an easy-to-use yet professional DVD authoring tool that specializes in DVD menu design and video to DVD burning. It includes a wide range of DVD menu templates and allows users to create a personalized menu by changing the background art, layout and combining a variety of pre-installed menu elements.

Key features:  

• Offer dozens of pre-designed DVD menu templates of various themes, such as Christmas and travel.
• Allow users to customize menu background image&music, text font/color/size, menu and title buttons, and more
• Burn a DVD from any video format to play on regular DVD players
• Provide full video editing tools to enhance your clips: trim, crop, rotate, chapter markers, subtitle setup and more
• Support different types of DVDs including DVD-R, DVD-RW and dual-layer DVDs
• Allow to preview the DVD to simulate playback on DVD players, ensuring a flawless DVD menu creation
• Also create ISO image and DVD folder from the project

This DVD menu creator offers a free trial version with full features and an affordable one-time payment. Now you can follow the simple guide below to create a video DVD with custom DVD menus in a few steps.

How to create a DVD menu easily on Windows and Mac:

Step 1. Download and launch iFunia DVD Creator.

Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 Free Download macOS 10.11 or later

Step 2. Import and edit videos.

Click the "Add Videos" button to browse and add movies or home videos to the app. Or you can simply drag and drop all the files to the interface.

If necessary, you can click the edit icon under the thumbnail to access the built-in video editor; here you can trim/crop/rotate the movie, or add watermark, subtitles and set chapter markers.

Step 3. Create a DVD menu.

1). Go to the Menu tab, you can select a template matching your DVD content from the left column. Each DVD menu theme contains at least 1 menu page and 1 play button, and it will be automatically adjusted to the number of your videos.

2). You can customize the background image by clicking the  icon in the lower right corner. To add background music, click the  icon in the right panel, and set fade in/out effects if needed. The duration of the top menu before auto-play is 15 secs or the length of the BGM.  

3). Click the icon, here you can change the menu button icons and title frames. And click to add text.

Step 4. Preview the DVD.

Go to the Preview tab where you can check how your finished DVD menu and videos look and play. If there are any problems you can always go back to the previous steps to make adjustments.

Step 5. Burn to DVD.

Go to the Burn tab, and select the "Burn to Disc" option to burn the content onto a DVD. Make sure you have a blank DVD inserted in your computer's optical drive. You can also select the DVD playback mode, which by default is "Start from menu and play all titles sequentially". When everything is ready, click the "Burn" button to start burning a DVD with your own menus.

Note: The DVD burning process can take longer time than DVD ripping and copying depending on the amount of data being burned. Once it finished, you can eject the DVD disc and verify the contents in your DVD player.

2. Freemake Video Converter

Supported OS: Windows 11/10/8/7, Vista

Price: 1 time free trial; $69.95/year, $59.95/lifetime with discount

Freemake Video Converter is a video conversion suite with DVD authoring tools. You can use its template menus or design your own menu background. It also offers a simple video editor to trim your movie, add subtitles and audio track. it's one of the easiest DVD menu creators that help you to make menus in minutes, but meanwhile the feature is quite basic, you can't add menu BGM and customize the buttons.

This DVD menu creator provides one time free trial with a Freemake logo watermark, you need to buy Freemake Mega Pack if you want to remove the logo or create more DVD menus.

How to make a DVD menu with Freemake Video Converter:

1. Download and run the DVD menu creator.
2. Click the “+Video” button to add videos you want to burn to DVD.
3. Click the "to DVD" option from the bottom toolbar, and a new window of DVD output settings will appear. Click the "No menu" button to run the DVD creator. Here you can choose a DVD menu type from the free templates it offers. To create your own DVD menu, check the "Use custom background" option to select an image. Click "OK" to save your changes.
4. Click the blue "Burn" button to burn a DVD with your own menu.

3. TMPGEnc Authoring Works

Supported OS: Windows 11/10/8.1/7 (64-bit only)

Price: 30-day free trial; $122 for full version

TMPGEnc Authoring Works is a full-featured software to create DVD/Blu-ray/AVCHD with professional-looking DVD menus. The latest version 7 offers overs 100 pre-made menu templates with different themes, and allows you to create custom menus with easy tools such as the menu structure settings that are displayed as a flowchart. Overall, this DVD menu creator is suitable for advanced users who often need to create DVDs with high quality menus.

Simple guide on how to create a DVD menu on Windows using TMPGEnc:

1. Download and run the software, select the output format and click "Start New Project".
2. Add your video source following the on-screen instructions.
3. Click the "Menu" button to open the “Menu Wizard” window. Here you need to select an aspect ratio and the menu creation mode - you can create DVD menu based on templates within a few clicks or create custom menus by choosing layout and items.
4. Select your preferred options and click the “Next” button to proceed.
5. Select options for the Disc Insertion Action and Track Playback End Action, then click on the "Finish" button to proceed.
6. The DVD Wizard window will close, and you can view all your menu pages and edit them if necessary.
7. Click on the “Simulation” button at the top to preview what your DVD menu will look like on a real DVD player.

4. DVDStyler

Supported OS: Windows; MacOS 10.15 or later; Linux

Price: Free

DVDStyler is a free and open source DVD authoring program for the creation of DVDs with interactive DVD menus. While the DVD templates it offers may seem outdated and unattractive, this free DVD menu creator lets you design your own menus from scratch. You can set image, slideshow and music videos as the backgrounds and create unique buttons from SVG graphics (an image format). As a free tool it provides excellent customization, but at the same time it can be more difficult to use for beginners than the consumer tools.

How to create DVD menus for free using DVDStyler:

1. Download DVDStyler from www.dvdstyler.org.
2. Run the program and create a new project. You need to specify the format of DVD you use to burn, the TV standard (Video Format), aspect ratio, title post command and so on. Click “OK” to proceed.
3. The next window that appears will ask you to select a template for DVD menus, each of which contains a main menu and a title selection menu. If there is no template you like, click the "No template" button to close it.
4. Drag and drop your videos into the manage box at the bottom of the interface.
5. To design your DVD menus, double-click on the menu or right-click on it and select the “Properties” option. In the new window that appears, you can customize the background with image, video or audio files.
6. Go to the “Buttons” tab, you can drag and drop the DVD menu buttons you need from the left column to the menu interface. You can double-click on the items to customize the action and look.
7. When you are ready, click the red Burn button at the top of the window to burn your DVD project to a disc. Make sure the “preview” option is checked so you can view your DVD in VLC media player before burning it to DVD.

5. WinX DVD Author

Supported OS: Windows 11/10/8/7

Price: Free

WinX DVD Author is a free DVD authoring tool that allows you to create video DVDs with custom DVD menus. This free DVD menu creator looks dated and offers few menu items, but still allows you to edit the background image and music. Note that this app doesn’t support certain formats, such as HEVC videos.

Steps to make a DVD menu for free with WinX DVD Author:

1. Download the program and run it, then click the “Video DVD Author” button to create DVD step by step.
2. In the new window, click “+” button to add your movies to burn. Then you can click the wrench icon to adjust parameters, such as DVD menu duration. Click the next step icon to proceed.
3. In the window of DVD menu creator, you can choose a pre-installed menu template or select your own background image. You can also add and edit a chapter menu, add text and BGM.
4. When the DVD menu is created, click the next step icon to burn a video DVD.

Alternative Way to Create DVD Menus

In addition to dedicated DVD menu creators, some advanced video editing software, such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro, also include DVD authoring capabilities. These video editors allow you to create DVD menus within the video editing or exporting workflow, which can be convenient if you're already familiar with these programs. However, if you seldom use these software, they may not be the best choice for creating DVD menus. Not only do they often come at a higher cost, but they also tend to require a steep learning curve and more disk space. Therefore, it's advisable to create DVD menus using specialized DVD making tools rather than video editing software with DVD authoring features, which may be gradually phased out in future upgrades.

Conclusion

With the top DVD menu creators mentioned above, you can easily create visually appealing menus that match your DVD projects. Free DVD creators like DVDStyler allow you to make DVD menus at no cost, while consumer tools like iFunia DVD Creator and TMPGEnc offer more intuitive interface and technical support for beginners.

Experiment now and have fun showing off your creations!

Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 Free Download macOS 10.11 or later