Sage, I'm doing this for the guy I wrote of on June 15 @12:59. He is NOT going to mess about with anything but DVDs or VHS tapes. I agree that 'I' could make them work well enough, -and I already have the HDrive- but he gets agitated when he has to learn something new. He can hardly work his DVD remote, due to his bad eyesight. Can't see the writing on the TV, you see.
Another solution that would work just for me is to put them on a thumb drive. I have a freeview decoder that allows me to to move things back and forth. But he hasn't, and can't, and won't!

Recently the TV authority did a revision of the stations which meant retuning the TVs, and some channels became different #s on the remote, and he hasn't quite caught up with that, another source for his irritation. A while ago we went to digital TV, another. "Why can't they leave things ALONE?"
I'm not even sure that he is comfortable with electricity! He switches EVERYTHING off at the wall.

Getting old isn't very much fun.
He's a pretty good performer though, still.