DVD Burners - the lowdown...?

i have a question, i dont know much about dvd burners but i am looking to buy one.
Can i burn dvd movies from my collection for personal use using a dvd burner? Does the burner actually let me? I'm thinking maybe the burner's purpose is for data storage on blank dvds only.
And what software would i use? What is the best around?
And if it can burn it, is it an exact duplicate which works just like the original in a dvd player?
And i suppose the way it works would be to copy the whole dvd onto your hdd then burn the image over?

Thanks people,
Rj