I have a DVD burner/VCR combo. One cool thing I like about my DVD burner is I can record from 1 to 10 hours of video. I have a S-Video connection plugged into the DVD burner from the computer so I can watch the video from my computer through the recorder. I just hit record on the DVD burner and it's like taping something off TV. No conversion process and I can tape anything streaming like nothing. Problem is the DVD burner is an Emerson piece of crap which is dying and sometimes won't record and sometimes it will. Sometimes after it starts playing I'll get an error saying it can't write to disk. Plus it can't read/write anything except 8x or slower DVD-R disks. I know there is DVD burning software out there but it seems like most of it is a hassle and takes forever to convert video formats, plus they can only do certain formats. Also you can't tell it how much video you want to get on a disk. I don't care about fancy menus, I just want a way to stream video from my machine to the burner or at least something simple which will allow me to adjust quality so I can get more on a disk. Most of my disks have between 4 to 6 hours of video or more depending on how good quality the original is. Any help?

my friend swears by DeeVeeDee
i have not used it heavily but it will take a massive variewty of import files and convert them to a dvd/vcd/svcd compatible image.

Alternatively a PCI TV tuner card with SVideo or Composite input may be handy

Just to let anyone know (if they run into it) check out Allok DVD converter/burner software. I have a hacked version and I can convert a ton of different formats including wmv, rm, mp4 into a DVD disk and get up to 7 hours on a DVD. Very sleek interface.

Isn't Allok a windows app?

Unfortunately, yes. I haven't found any good multimedia tools for Linux myself. In fact, multimedia is the only reason I even kick Windows around.

Still have it kicking around so you can run your pirate software.... Charming

As for the OP's question, memcoder is problay something to look into (there are numerous frontends for it)

*edit* K3B is great for burning, vlc/mplayer are great for movies, Amarok is the single best music player i've ever seen. There's plenty there

I use vlc and k3b, I like them both a lot. I just haven't found any good DVD creation apps especially something like want I need this app to do. I do hate VLC's fullscreen option. If I need to forward media I have to get out of fullscreen and hit forward (which jumps big gags at a time, which is a seperate annoyance). Most media players in fullscreen will allow you display the navigation controls on the bottom of the screen if you roll over it. It's good for skipping credits, etc. I also kick Windows around due to some media issues. Otherwise I like Linux for everything. I always run my servers on Debian and I prefer the environment.