How can I transfer a commercial VCR movie to a DVD disk for archival purposes?

Question

Also, how can I change video files downloaded from the internet to files I can play on my DVD player?

By law, I am allowed to have an archival copy for my own personal use. I am not planning to sell copies of anything to anyone.

Answer 1

Easiest way is to buy a DVD player/burner that is a self-contained unit and hooks up with your VCR/TV.

Alternatively, you could transfer the movei to you computer by essentially playing it into a suitable graphics card, and then using a DVD burner on your computer. This requires appropriate software as well, such as Nero. This is definitely more complicated, but if you already have a DVD burner on your computer, it will be cheaper because, at the most, all you'll need to buy is some software and maybe some cables.

Also since you want to put downloaded videos on DVDs, you're going to have to do all that anyway.

Movies downloaded on the internet need to be transcoded before they can be burned to a DVD. DVD burning software will do this for you. (its the soundtrack that's being modified, not the video, but it needs to be done.)

How you do all that will depend on what software you have. I just started doing stuff like this and it took me a couple evenings to figure it all out.

Answer 2

No, you need to make sure that you buy a DVD recorder with a VCR built in or you can buy a DVD recorder separately and plug the output of your VCR into the input or you DVD recorder. The quality might not be the greatest from VHS to DVD but it will still work. Some of the newer DVD recorders can be kind of hard to operate. If you only get a VCR and DVD combo machine then you can only play DVD's but not record them. But with this you can copy DVD's to VHS tapes. Hope this answer helps, Dustin