What's the difference between a DVD recorder with a tuner and without?

Question

I probably won't have it integrated into my home theatre system right away. It will mainly be for putting old video tapes onto DVD.

Answer 1

You only need a tuner if you want to record DVDs without the use of a cable or satellite box (hooking up a coaxial cable directly from the wall to the recorder without a box in between).  A DVD recorder without a tuner is fine for copying video tapes or recording from a cable or satellite box or for just watching DVDs.