A buddy of mine has a mac (not sure how fast; most likely 800MHz), and is capturing VHS using the Dazzle Hollywood Bridge, and then has it hooked up to his mac via USB. I didn't think that USB 1.1 was fast enough for capturing video, but it seems to be working for him. He uses iMovie (or iDVD, I forget which) to capture it, convert it, and burn it to DVD. The thing is, the quality is OK, but it is kind of grainy. Granted, so is the VHS tape, however, when I took the DVD that he had burned that was a little grainy, ripped it, and converted it to VCD MPEG format with SmartRipper, DVD2AVI, and TMPGEnc (I have a PC, obviously), it came out really good, not grainy at all. I then converted the VCD MPEG file to RealOne Media and Windows Media streaming files so that they could stream from the net. And they still looked really good. No grainyness at all.

I realize the the resolution of a computer monitor is hella better than that of a TV, but it still makes me think that it is possible to improve the quality of the video so that it comes out really well on DVD. Since I do not have a mac, and can not read this forum, post questions, and experiment, I was wondering if anyone has a guide that they can point me to, that I, in turn, can point my friend to so that he will be able to produce quality DVD's from his VHS tapes using iMovie.

Can anyone either explain to me how he can do this, or point me to a reference that explains it well? I'd appreciate it.

One sidenote is that with respect to the DVD that I am referring to that came out grainy, well, someone else made a DVD from the same VHS tape using a standalone Phillips DVD Recorder, and it came out better than the DVD that my buddy made with his mac.

In other words, it is possible to better the quality. I just hope it's possible with a macintosh computer and iMovie (or iDVD; again, I forget which). Also, he does have Final Cut Pro 2, but does not know how to use it. He is used to and prefers the simplicity of iMovie/iDVD. If anyone can explain how he would use Final Cut Pro 2, in simple terms, to do this, then that would work as well.