Question re: Burning DVD's
 

I have some old home movies (tape) to convert to digital media. I have the cables, camera, software, etc. to capture these to my laptop.

My question is this: If I have a DVD-R disk that can hold an hour of video, and I burn a 20 minute movie - can I, later on, burn another (less than 40 minute) movie to that same DVD? Will it write to the open space on the disk - or will it overwrite the previous (20 minute) movie?

Thanks.

It depends on how you finish the job on the disc. At the end, before you "close" the disc, it should give you an option to either save it as a CD or as a USB type device (something like that). If you choose the USB option, you can later add files to the disc. If you choose the traditional option, it'll finalize the disc, and you can no longer ADD to it, just burn OVER your old file.

If it is a DVD-R and it is closed you won't be able to write to it at all. I would either wait and fill the disk at once, or just burn and close it. Disks are cheap.

The FBI says that copying old media results in 5 years in jail, or $500 thousand dollar fine. Per incident.

From what the OP described, John, they're HOME movies: no copyright infringement laws apply to your personal tapes of the kid's birthdays...

I'd dump each tape to its own dvd and call it done. They are cheap - pennies each - why bother trying to add more?

While you're at it, dump them all onto a removable hard drive, as well. Things happen to DVD's; if it's important memories, it's always a good thing to have a spare.

Now don't quote me on this, but I think you can re-use a DVD RW disc (re-writable). I've done it before, but since going to 1080p, I have not used DVDs in years.

So it looks like I will shuffle them into categories and try to best utilize the disk space, since I only get one-burn per DVD-R.

Yes - they are home movies, no copyrights.

Thanks for the info. everyone.