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).
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.