1. Analog videos (analog 8 mm and VHS) must be converted to digital format before they can be burned to DVD. Video-capture devices (internal or external) can connect your camcorder or VCR to your PC. Some capture devices even perform the conversion in hardware. Others ship with conversion software.

  2. Digital video camcorders that can also read analog tapes (typically 8 mm) perform the conversion on the fly and send a digital stream directly to your PC.

  3. USB 1.1, which has throughput of about 11 MBps, is not fast enough for high-quality video capture. High-quality video (30 frames per second with 24-bit color at a resolution of 640 by 480) requires throughput of at least 210 MBps to maintain quality and not drop frames. USB 2.0 works at speeds up to 480 MBps and FireWire (IEEE 1394) can run at 400 MBps.

  4. You'll need lots of free hard drive space to work with digital video. Even if you use one-step DVD-creation tools, the software will cache the video on your system's hard drive before burning the DVD. Two hours of high-quality digital video usually takes up nearly 4GB of hard drive space.

  5. Digital video tapes hold one hour of high-quality video. 8 mm analog tapes are typically two hours long and VHS-C analog tapes are usually one hour long.

  6. Most consumer DVD authoring and burning products can fit just one hour of high-quality MPEG-2 video onto a DVD.

  7. Most DVD authoring tools allow you to record to DVD at lower bit rates (which means image quality is likely to be somewhat reduced), so you can fit up to two hours of video on a DVD.

  8. Many set-top DVD players cannot play DVDs that have been written at lower bit rates.

  9. Don't be confused by one-step or automatic DVD-creation software promises. They can do their work with little user intervention, but the time it takes to encode video and burn a DVD can be quite lengthy. Encoding, compiling, and burning a one hour DVD can easily take two hours.

  10. Many set-top DVD players will play DVD-R discs only, not DVD-RW or DVD+RW discs. Check the manufacturer's Web site for details since this information is not always listed in the manual, especially with older models of players.