I'm looking for a standalone DVD Recorder, preferably with a hard drive and Firewrie input to convert home vidoes to DVD. I would like a player that's easy to use and that will allow the insertion of chapter marks (preferably manually) and create nice looking menus with a thumbnail of the video and custom captions. Does such a unit exist?

Pioneers will do what you're looking for. The captions are limited in the number of letters they display though. It might be 16 or so.

The DVR-520-S is the current model that I would suggest but I believe they're coming out with some new ones soon.

Thanks X! I'll research it.

I got a good deal on the Pioneer 420 last year at Costco, but haven't paid attention to whether or not they still carry it. (they had a coupon for $100 off when I bought mine)

I looked into the Pioneer 520H. It looks good, but I only wish it was multi-format to ensure future compatability. Not a major issue, however, since I have a multi-format burner in my PC that I can use to convert a -R to a +R, or vice versa.