When you record a program onto a disc using a DVD+RW video recorder, each recording will be asigned a title, and each title will be represented in the Disc Menu with an index picture. This menu can then be used at playback (both in the recorder and in a standard DVD-Video player) to easily select the recording you want to view. You select a title by pressing the up and down keys of a remote, to highlight the desired title, and then press OK to start playback.
Each menu screen consists of up to 3 titles. If a disc contains more than 3 titles, additional index screens will be created. The pictures that will be assigned to a title in the disc menu will automatically be selected by the recorder to best represent the recording, but you may manually change this afterwards by selecting any of the frames from the title.
 Next to the title, three lines of information will be presented:
- The name of the title
- The duration of the recording and recording mode
- Date of recording
By default, the title name is the program name or source and the start time of the recording (such as 'BBC1 13:45'), but you may change this to anything you like. Some TV stations in Europe send the name of the current programme along with their regular broadcast. If this information is available, the name will be used in the title line.
When you browse trough the disc menu using the up and down keys, the FTD display on the front of the recorder will also show the title names.
And then there's the disc bar, another unique feature of DVD+RW video recorders. The disc bar will be displayed to the right of the disc menus on screen, and on the FTD display at the recorder on some models (Philips DVDR1000/980/985, Philips DVDR70/75/77/80 and Yamaha), to represent the lenghts of the recordings, so you could easily see how much space a title takes up on the disc, and where to find empty space to make a new recording (of course, with DVD+RW you may also partly overwrite a recording in the middle of the disc!). You will only see this bar on the menu screens on the DVD+RW video recorder itself and not when the disc is being played back on a DVD-Video player. Since the large screenshot on this page was taken from a software DVD player on my PC, you won't see this disc bar either, but you get an impression from the small picture above.
Screenshot that I took using PowerDVD from the menu of a DVD+RW disc recorded in the Philips DVDR1000 DVD+RW video recorder (quality influenced due to resizing)
Above you will see a screenshot of a menu that I recorded on a Philips DVDR1000 DVD+RW video recorder. This disc contains 3 titles, named WWW, DVDPLUSRW and ORG respectively. For all titles, the recording time is indicated next to the index picture. They are all recorded in HQ mode, offering the best quality.
 Download dvdr1000_display1.mov (4.5 MB)
Requires Apple QuickTime
In this movie, you'll see the behaviour of the DVDR1000/985/980/Yamaha's front display when browsing trough the titles. As I move my selection box from up to down on the screen, the title names WWW, DVDPLUSRW and ORG will be showed in the display, along with their graphical representation of the space they take up on the disc. When I press down once more on the third title, an 'Empty Title' will be shown.
Note that on some models, the disc bar (the line with vertical stripes) is not available (like Philips DVDR880/890). You will see the title names on the display of all recorders, though, and the disc bar is always available on-screen. Some recorders DO display a discbar on the FTD display, but is contains less segments and is a bit shorter (Philips DVDR70/75/77/80). The idea is similar to the one displayed above, though.
Now I pressed the 'Record' button. The recorder immediately starts recording. As you can see on the display, the remaining recording time is indicated by small red dots above and beneath the disc bar. As you can also see, the selected program source will be CNN. The remaining recording time is shown both numerical as well as by an increasing bar in the disc bar. Note that the current recording setting is HQ, taking up relatively much space on the disc.
After a few seconds I pressed the 'Stop'-button. The menu screen will be updated (this takes a few seconds), and then the disc menu (with my new recording!) will be shown on the screen.
As a bonus, you will see a reflection of me and my camera in the display of the recorder! :-)
 As an extra, when you press the up-key when the first title is selected, you can view the Disc Info Menu. On the recorder, this menu will allow you to assign a name to the disc, erase the full disc, protect it from being changed or accidently erased, and make edits compatible. On a normal DVD-Video player, it will only show you you the combined recording time on the disc, the date of the last recording, the video format that was used (PAL or NTSC), and wether the edits are DVD-Video compatible yet (a disc recorded in a DVD+RW video recorder is always immediately compatible with DVD-Video players, however for the edited playlists to be shown on a DVD-Video player as well, the short 'Make edits compatible' option has to be applied).
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