newbie looking for help on vhs captures

[auxiliary]

i'm just getting into the hobby and i'm looking for some advice. what i'm looking to do is capture some older vhs tapes i have (home movies and commercial stuff) and burn them to dvd with no quality loss over the original vhs. right now i have a panasonic pv-8450 vcr (just a basic model) with a pretty crappy dc10+ capture card. i've already figured out that i might have to replace the dc10+ as i can't get it to work worth a poop (res problems, driver issues, 90% of capture software won't detect it). what i'm wondering is if you guys think i should...

1. get a new vcr cause this one won't output well?

2. get a new capture card and if so, what model?

i did read the guides at www.digitalfaq.com and figured that i should be capturing 352x480 interlaced to either avi or mpg2 then burn to dvd. i'm just not sure on vcd/svcd and etc, i want to have the best quality conversions even if it takes 1 dvd per vhs tape. any help is appreciated. please note that i would like to spend as little money as possible because i just wanna convert these tapes to get rid of them.

pc specs are...

p4 3.2ghz with HT
1gig of pc3200 ddr
32gig raptor sata
160gig maxtor 7200
winxp pro
9800 pro

[Capmaster]

There are several good capture cards. Browse through the capture hardware section (left of screen). I'd recommend a Canopus MPEG2 hardware encoder if you're primarily going to capture VHS. Going the DV route would be too time-consuming and overkill for your needs.

You'll want to have a timebase corrector (TBC) somewhere in your signal path before your capture card. You can either buy a VCR with one built-in (look at JVC models for this) or you can do what I did and add a standalone TBC. The advantage of this is that you can move it to another setup if you need to. They're not cheap, though. My Datavideo TBC-1000 coat me $300.

[auxiliary]

i guess i should have been a tad more clear...

i'm looking to convert MAYBE 20 vhs tapes and then be done with capturing. i just want those 20 captures to be the best quality without going crazy on buying equipment. i don't want to spend 300 dollars for a TBC when i'm talking about 20 tapes. i'm thinking a decent capture card that i can resell on ebay later.

[jameshgross]

I have converted over 100 VHS tapes to DVD.
Using the following procedure:
VHS --> Hitachi Home theater --> Monitor Out --> Hauppauge WINTV PVR USB2.0 --> Capture to MPEG at DVD Quality --> TMPGEnc DVD Author -->
Sony DRU510 DVD-R. Works every time.

You will of course need a capture card. Dont buy cheap.

[gshelley61]

You also may want to consider using a standalone DVD recorder. It's a very easy real-time process. Most DVD recorders have some combination of video noise reduction and a mild TBC to help clean up analog video (VHS, laserdisc, Hi8, etc.) prior to encoding. The prices have been falling and the output quality is very good. The amount of time this method saves can't be overstated. Plus, finished DVD's can still be edited and re-authored using your computer later, if you like.

DVD recorders hold their value well and can be sold quite easily on eBay... but once you have one, chances are good you'll want to keep it. Have a look at the JVC DR-M10SL that just came out recently. I have one and can say it does a really outstanding job.

For more info, visit theDVD Recorder Forum:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28

[fmctm1sw]

Ther can be big differences in picture quality from VCRs. See any number of my many posts on VCRs...

[Capmaster]

i guess i should have been a tad more clear...

i'm looking to convert MAYBE 20 vhs tapes and then be done with capturing. i just want those 20 captures to be the best quality without going crazy on buying equipment. i don't want to spend 300 dollars for a TBC when i'm talking about 20 tapes. i'm thinking a decent capture card that i can resell on ebay later.

The way your first post was worded, I assumed you had many tapes to cap. I bought my TBC because I ended up capturing more than 2,000 movies from tape. Capping only 20 is a different story.

Just take your chances with a decent capture card then. You may or may not have lip-sync issues depending on the condition of the tapes. Definitely don't buy a TBC if you're just going to cap 20 tapes and then sell all the equipment