A DVD burner can be used to play CD's and watch DVD's. It can be used to burn music to CD's and burn homemade movies or make archived copies of DVD's you own. Now keep in mind that many burn illegal copies of DVD's they rent or borrow from a friend, keep in mind this is illegal. Most likely you'll never get caught if your smart, but just thought I'd let you know.
DVD movies you rent/buy are copy protected, so you will have to use one of the many ripper software programs on the net that offer the technology to crack the protection before you rip it to your hard drive. Again, this is illegal.
If your archiving home movies, you won't be arrested. Most burners come with their own burning software, again this will not break copy protection.
good luck
