Also when PBS dives into cooking shows or soap opera (Doc Martin, 800 Words) I can't play any of the 150 DVD I recorded, those come out yellow red white RCA plugs, which I don't know the name of so I can't buy a DVI converter.
Except for (maybe) news, TV cable programming should be watched only in PVR record. Pesky commercials make a show a movie run 20% longer, and they are irrelevant and throw you off the mood. When you set time recording, you can watch it later on your own schedule and skip commercials with touch of a button. Not being a techie, I wouldn't know how to use a PVR without actual TV set or cable TV. Maybe install Kodi on your PC, I see some PVR option in Kodi menu.
Yellow-red-white cable is called Composite Video-Audio Cable, but why using a standalone DVD player at all?
I would suggest to digitize DVDs and CDs (aka rip), load onto PC and backup on external hard drive. And watch with whatever library interface is easier (I'm using Kodi). If you have Win 7/8, you might try Windows Media Center - it is not a part of Win 10 but I heard it is possible to add it.
I'm using old soft DVD Shrink + Handbrake for ripping DVDs into MP4 or MKV files, and Exact Audio Copy or Foobar for ripping music CDs into Flac/Aac. Oddly, making Kodi "scrape" a ripped Flac into library is sometimes trickier than scraping a movie or show, especially compilation albums, though nothing unmanageable. Kodi is infinitely adjustable and can be too much, easy to make a mistake when adding album to library and have , say, one Bach album suddenly split into multiple "performers" that you don't need to know, each with his own thumb, and then you have to re-scrape it.
Other than that, Kodi is a nice interface for PC-connected 36" TV and bigger, there are many RF and IR remotes though any wireless mouse or compact wireless keyboard will work. After watching movies/shows in Kodi or Windows MC you probably won't go back to standalone DVD player.
Eventually you lose interest in some show or album in your library and go back to cable TV with PVR, looking for fresh content