Are you actually getting an increase in resolution when you burn a VHS tape to a dvd? If you have a favorite poor quality VHS tape is it worth the transfer? I've experimented over the years but have seen minor results.

Nah, 240 lines is 240 lines even when you burn it to DVD.

The only advantage is that those 240 lines you've burned to DVD won't degrade any further.

The DVD will be of higher resolution because it only runs at its resolution. There won't be any more information in the picture though. You can't add picture data that was never there.

Imagine copying a 100 page book verberim into a 1000 page book. You'd just have to use a bigger font or 10x spacing or whatever to fill the difference.

The resolution cannot get better than what you're recording from. However, if you import the movie into some video editing program such as Premiere or Sony Vegas you can adjust the picture in form of brightness, contrast, colors etc. to make it look a bit better. That's the only thing you can improve when you put the movie over to DVD.

When I said , "minor results" in my OP I was referring to what I see as some increase in clarity on the dvd after the burn (on some discs). It might be my imaginative desire or because it's native to the dvd, but I don't fully understand that part of it. It's too bad there is no real line resolution increase, that be monumental. Are there units that increase line resolution from VHS to dvd for home use?

There is a line resolution increase, DVDs are incapable of running at VHS resolution. Like I said though, there won't be any more data because the data was never recorded onto the original VHS. The only way to get a full 480 lines of actual information from something that was recorded at 240 would be witchcraft, magic, voodoo, prayer, things like that. Its completely impossible scientifically speaking.

Voodoo . How much of a line resolution increase then?