You should have both a stand-alone player plus a DVD burner in your computer for the best of both worlds.
Record off-air or VHS material on your stand-alone in either the one hour mode (XP or whatever the different brands call it) or the two-hour speed (usually called SP)
Some set-top recorders have speed settings in-between one hour and two hours, That is a good option to have.
Try not to record in the long play modes, unless you are making just a time-shift reference recording to watch on your own player later, since not only is the quality not so hot, there could be compatabilty issues if you try to play the DVD on another player.
Then, on your computer, if you have Toast (Mac) or Nero(Windows), you can make copies of your DVD, and they will be clones, no difference in quality.
Paul
PS - Do NOT put label stickers on yout DVD. Try to get the white-top blanks that you can print on.