DVDR / Hard Drive questions

I have a cam corder that write to the mini DVDs. I am looking to get a DVDR
with hard drive to help me merge them together.
I've never used one so I just want to ask how that would work?

1 - copy small dicss to hard drive
2 - burn them to a standard sized DVD

For the first step, do the DVDR decks copy the files to the hard drive, or
would I need to play it and basically record it real time?

I have my eyes on the Philips DVDR3575H. Does anyone have any feedback on
this unit?
This device also has a USB port. I have 250 GB USB hard drive. Can the DVDR
deck read files from this device? I think I reda they can do jpeg and audio
files, but what about video files? AVI ? MPG? How about a video_ts
directory?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!!!