When Kurt Peterson bought a DVD burner, he thought that he would burn all his family home videos onto DVD so they would keep for a longer time than they would have on VHS.

&uot;After transferring all our home videos to DVD we were very impressed with the quality as well as the small amount of space that a DVD takes up compared to a video tape,&uot; Peterson said. &uot;We figured, why wouldn’t everyone want to do this?&uot;

So Peterson and his wife Cindy started a home business, VCR to DVD. Since early August the couple, in their spare time, has been running the business. Advertising through the newspaper as well as word of mouth, they have done well.

&uot;So far we’re getting more and more calls every day,&uot; Peterson said.

DVD stands for digital video disc, and much like a video tape, or VHS, it can store a movie. It being a relatively new technology, very few people have DVD burners, machines that copy a movie onto a disc. So Peterson thought since he was one of the few who owns a DVD burner in the area that he might as well make a business out of making DVDs for people

Peterson’s company can copy for customers any VHS, or VHS-C video tapes on to DVD and soon will be able to do the same for 8 mm, digital 8, Beta camera and S-VHS videos.

Because of copyright laws, Peterson said he cannot copy videos of television shows or movies, but can copy anything that was made by the customer, like home videos, weddings, birthday parties, school plays.

The main advantage of DVDs, according to Peterson, is that they last longer than VHS tapes, are more easily stored, have great quality and are much easier to use because finding certain moments in a video is much easier.

&uot;I’ve read that DVDs can last up to 100 years, whereas VHS tapes will start to break down in quality after ten and will start to break at about 20 years,&uot; Peterson said.

The cost to the customer is $20 per one-to-two-hour DVD. For the next few months Peterson has a coupon deal for 10 percent off of that price.

Peterson is proud of the product. &uot;The quality is just unbelievable,&uot; he said.