Capture Card or miniDV Camcorder in VHS to DVD?

[kthan]

I have tried VHS to DVD via DVD recorder. I was disappointed at the quality (not matched to original). I am a 'true' beginner (sorry for ignorance), and want to know a way to create a better (at least same) quality DVD than the original VHSs.

When capturing, which device would you prefer? I was told that I can buy a capture card (hardware). Or, I can use my miniDV camcorder (by using pass through mode). Which option would you prefer. I want to go with my camcorder without spending money for buying capture card. Would that be okay?

Also, when using miniDV, can I choose some options (like resolution, bit rate, etc.)? It looks like I need two 60 min miniDV tapes to get highest quality recording (All of my VHS are 120 min).

What about connection? Can I get serious advantage when using S-video, compared to composite? My VCR doesn't have S-video output, but, if this is one of must, I can locate it from my friends.

When using miniDV, I need to record miniDV first, then it would be the same way to convert into MPEG, right? In this procedure, where can I get modification (like color correction, noise reduction, etc.) to make new DVD looks better (than the original)?

Again, sorry for many dummy questions. Thanks for your help.

[mwkurt]

Let's see if we can figure this out. I would use your camcorder with passthrough for the capture. However, I wouldn't capture to tape, unless you want to archive. I would run composite or S-Video to your camera's input from vcr. If it is true passthrough you can connect the firwire output of your camcorder to your firewire input of your pc. This will pretty much give you a bit for bit copy of your vhs tapes. It will come into your computer as DV avi at 720x480. I don't think that you can change the bit rate, etc. Maybe you can according to the software you use to caprture the DV video.
Once you have the DV avi on your pc, you can do anything you want with it. i.e. edit, cut, trim, and finally encode to mpeg2 for DVD.
Do a tools search for software for capturing. You can use VDub for editing, look for guides. Some things to be wary of when capturing DV avi to your pc. Watch for dropped frames. This can be caused by a fragmented hard drive among other things. If you get dropped frames your audio can go out of sync with the video. Also, Dv avi is about 13GB per hour, so make sure you have room on your pc. Try to capture to a completely different drive from your system drive (Not just a partition). Any other questions? Let us know.
Mark