How to import video files to the VLC library?

[petiteGMT]

Hello all:
Well this ought to be a basic thing here but nothing has caused me more grief. I even had to uninstall and re-install because the player just got stuck. Over and over.

I must confess, this is not my player of choice. But the folks who sold me my security camera system assure me it is the only one that will burn the video that I download from CCTV security cameras, which also use a Linux DVR, and which I admit is all new to me.

I have windows 7 pro, 64 bit, and a notebook, there are four security cameras on my property. I hope to never have to get video and give it to a law enforcement officer but that is not the case. It is an hour of video and it comes down in an asf file. I do not care for that. Those are HUGE. The problem I am having is burning it then to a CD or DVD. I just want an easy time.

Can anyone 1) suggest a way to first convert the video to something I can use in my Corel Video Pro? or Windows Media player (only because I am familiar with them). These are to catch bad people and I've had my share of burglaries and vandals.

Can anyone 2) suggest a way to get the right codec then, to WMP? Can anyone just suggest an overall best, user-friendly easy way to download and burn to DVD or CD? I had one hour of video today. It was the second time I ever downloaded and I sent them to the folders the "tech" set up, but then I had a real hard time and could not import them into the VCL media player.
Please excuse me if this is the wrong forum if you direct me I will copy this and go to the right one. I'm not sure what this type of use would come under.
I am usually pretty good at catching on, but the help has been marginal and this system totally new to me. I do have a burner and that is the one thing that worked well, it burned the videos I downloaded and it was fairly quick. The tech today made comments that was not accurate -- such as "this will take an hour to download."
The file took about five minutes if that.
So, there isn't much help there.
Thank you so much in advance to everyone.
GMT
struggling with this in Tampa

[daaceking]

can't quite make sense of what you're asking. vlc can play anything, if you want to transcode, use handbrake. if you want to burn, you can try cyberlink power2go free version but it has limitations