Hi Melody. I'm going to try to answer your questions, but am going to take them a little out of order.

The best way to describe the difference is to think of the CD player for our car. When you go to the music store, you buy music CD's to play in that. When you go to the video store, you buy/rent DVD's to play in your DVD player. Those players have different formats much the same way the old VHS has a different format than the DVD's.

Since CD's came along before DVD, some DVD players will also play CD's - but not all.

A CD holds 650 MB (megabyte) of data. There are 1000 MB in a GB (gigabyte). So, a CD holds 0.65 GB. A DVD holds 4.77 GB - about 7 times what a CD will hold.

Even after 5 years, the discs should still be good.

RW is short for ReWrite. This means that once you have 'burned' something to the CD, you can add additional data to it - but only using your same computer. You could not take it to another computer and add data.

The 2x 4x speed is how fast it will 'burn'. The discs you have will accept those 2 speeds. So, if you wanted to copy 60 minutes of video, it would take 30 minutes to copy, using the 2x; and 15 minutes to copy using the 4x. The user typically controls the speed based on the capability of their computer. By today's standards 2x and 4x is pretty slow - I typically use 16x.

Another difference in CD's is that they are either '+' or '-'. The CD's you have are '-'

You would want to check the user manual for your Audiovox to see what formats it will accept. You will be looking for CD-R or CD-RW. If you don't find that, then the answer is No.

If it will accept the CD-R format, then the next consideration is the length of the video. You shouldn't plan more than 30-minutes of recording time on a CD.

Lightscribe is a way of labeling discs. I would wait until you are familiar with the DVD itself.

The DVD is a combo drive. It will accept both DVD and CD, and it can 'write' (burn, copy) to DVD in either the '+' or '-' format. It can only write to the CD in the '-' format.

The other CD drive is strictly for playback or installation programs. You cannot write to it.

Having said all that, I would suggest that you purchase new DVD RW discs. But first check your Audiovox to see what format it will play. You will be looking for DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW. Since your DVD drive will create any of those formats, you want to purchase the discs that match what your Audiovox can play back.

Yes you can create DVDs with Media Center. I am not familiar with the HP Media Center, but strongly suspect that it is their name on the Windows Media Center. Here is the link to Microsoft's instructions:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...s-Media-Center

If those instructions don't look familiar, you will want to visit HP's website:

http://www.hp.com/#Support

In Step 1, choose the option for 'See support and troubleshooting information'. Then in Step 2, click the link for 'Start Detection'. This will find what HP products you have. From there you can locate the user manuals that should have the instructions for the Media Center.

Good Luck. I think what you are trying to do is wonderful. She will really appreciate it.