Video Transfer: Do I need a special app/program to transfer videos from my laptop to a cd or flash drive

You don't need a dedicated app to transfer videos to cd or flash drive if you'll only use them on computers. If you need to play the videos on a DVD player, you'll need a dvd burning software, such as 'Burn' for Mac and Cisdem DVD Burner.

If they are just .mov,.mp4, HEVC, WMV, AVI etc. video files you can copy/burn them the same as any other file.

If you are copying a DVD or DVD files (MPEG2 .IFO, .BUP, .VOB files), then yes, you need Roxio Toast or other DVD authoring app.