This was during an era where VHS was standard and DVD’s were just brand new at the time (before streaming sites existed). Chains like Blockbuster were booming back then with people renting movies or even TV shows for a fee but have to return them by an expected date, what happens is that in order to “keep” a copy, people would use a PC with disc burning software to burn the contents from that DVD onto a blank one.
Know those blank white DVDs? Basically those were used on storing a “pirated” disc for themselves before returning the rented copy back at the video rental store. When I was a kid, I remember encountering what clearly a pirated copy of The Prince of Egypt (so who ever pirated it kept the rented copy) since the disc art is crappy & low quality (it’s been printed then glued onto a blank DVD used for copying upon peeling it off).
honestly wasn’t worth it. in the 90s you either had enough money to get one of those dual VHS recorders or you had two VHS players that you somehow wired up to each other to do it. you still had to pay for the blank tapes so I mean you’d rent a tape for like $3 but you’d be spending more just to have a copy of it. In many cases it was just cheaper to either record from a tv broadcast or just wait for the rental place to take the product off the shelf and sell it used.
and even when DVD-Rs came out that was still expensive. The blank discs weren’t cheap and the drive itself was expensive. Add to the fact that burned DVDs just don’t last anywhere near as long as pressed DVDs. I thought I was smart burning Dreamcast games but I’d end up having to reburn them every couple years. THEN consider the fact that many people just simply didn’t know how to burn DVDs correctly so good luck getting one to play on everyones player perfectly.
I still have a ton of CDs and DVDs I burned in mid 2000s. I’m pretty sure they all still work.
It’s like VCRs now though, in that I don’t think I have an actual player or a disk drive in any of my computers anymore. I think some of them would work in my PlayStation, but I also have Spotify and IPTV, so in the time it took me to write this comment, I’d have it called up.
For the record though, I know for a fact they still largely work. I did verify that a few years ago, when my wife tried to throw them out.
Heh. I recently revived an old computer, got a case off FB marketplace and put old hardware in there. Old gigabyte board, e8400 core2duo, $10 GPU off eBay, a 128gb SSD I had laying around. Finished off with Linux Mint and it works pretty well actually. Able to watch 1080p YouTube no problem, even installed Steam and started playing through GTA3 again. IDE CD/DVD drive, and even floppy drive! Had to replace the deteriorated rubber for the cd drive tray mechanism. Both work perfectly, turns out I have 1 single surviving floppy disk that I tested with.