Oof, super cold? I have done financial support, and there were some cold fish. The biggest thing I have seen is whether they see you as an inside or an interloper.
I would decide based on where you see yourself. Either way you are spending about $50 now.
If you want to increase your OS partition space, go with the larger M.2 and discard your old smaller one.
If you are more concerned with space in general, the SATA SSD is your best bet for the money. You can move your programs and documents to the SSD to save space.
This is currently in Congress. The intent is to kill end to end encryption in the United States under the pretense of child safety. If you are in the states, contact your local Congressional representative and tell them to vote against the bill.
I'm surprised there is not more organization against it.
Is it possible that the video isn't properly encoded in the first place?
Try transcoding to MP4 first and then burning it, even if it is already MP4.
Did you change DVD spindles recently to a new set?
Maybe you unwittingly moved from DVD- to DVD+
Will it play as a DVD on your system?