First off, authoring DVD's properly is complex. There are a couple of one-click solutions that let you make a simple disc with one video on it... but if you want custom menus and backgrounds, then you should be prepared to spend a few hours reading, learning, and trying. If you have a background in photoshopping and/or editing sound or video on the computer then you should be able to learn what you need in half the time.... otherwise you're in for a long journey indeed!

If you want to author nice dvd's with menus you can build to your own specs and the like, then you programs that can:

1.Edit your video clips to just contain the portions you want. There are many programs that do this. Vegas Video is a popular one.

2.Convert your video(s) to DVD-compliant MPEG-2 videos. I use a program called TMPGenc to do this. Has some nice utlilitarian features for letterboxing and changing the encode bitrate as well as different formats if you want to make a VCD or something. No frills, powerful converter. AKA Tsunami MPEG Encoder.

3.Creating menus. There are a couple of ways to do this. The best way is to get an all-on-one dvd authoring program that will let you both create & convert your menus and compile them into the muxed DVD. Doing it seperately starts to make things complicated.

4. Muxing and authoring your dvd-image. I use DVD-lab pro. Its got more features than I have time to learn to use.

Besides taking a long time to learn to do yourself, authoring dvds also takes a long time for your computer to do. I made a 5-episode DVD-5 (single layer) compilation of a favorite TV show that a friend who was out-of-the-country didn't have access to...
at 4-6 hours per episode to encode, and another 2-3 to build menus, author, mux, and then burn.. you're looking at a sizeable chunk of spare time!

The dvd's came out great! Too bad the 'friend' ended up being a wet-blanket. I hope she has a nice life and finds a nice person that treats her just like she treated me... lol!

2.