Best external Apple options for video capture?

[RedSoxFox7]

A friend of mine wants to start converting his old VHS tapes to DVD and asked me to do some research for him on what to buy. He's got an Apple notebook of some kind, and I know it's running OSX, but that's about all I know.

With a little Googling, it seems like there are 3 main options for him. The EyeTV 250, the Plextor ConvertX, and the Miglio EvolutionTV.

I know he won't be using it as a traditional PVR for TV capture, his only need (for now at least) is to be able to capture from VHS and/or camcorder and have the video available for editing and DVD authoring.

The EyeTV seems like the best of the bunch in general, but the EvoTV is available for $70 on Amazon right now, and from what I've read, it seems like the shortcomings of it are more in the traditional PVR sense, and may not really affect my friend's needs.

He's using iMovie for now, but wants to eventually start using Final Cut Pro. His plan is to start a business of converting people's old home movies to DVD, giving them a nice DVD structure, possibly editing them, and things of that nature.

I'm not sure what his budget really is, so any and all suggestions are welcome if there are better devices for his needs than the three I've found thus far.

I think he does plan on getting a traditional desktop in the near future if there are better internal options, but I think something that has a built-in encoder is going to be a must no matter what.

[olyteddy]

Hauppauge makes a Mac box equivalent of their PVR USB2 that does external MPEG2 (DVD Ready) encoding. The problem with MPEG2 encoded video is it doesn't edit as easy as DV. He might also look at a DV Camcorder with Video Pass Through. http://www.eskapelabs.com/products.html

[gspanos@comcast.net]

I've been using a Canon ZR 80 camcorder that has a "passthrough" feature that allows me to pass analog signals from the VCR through the camera and into iMovie. Works like a charm, the quality is excellent, the price is right (mine cost about $300), and you have yourself a nifty little camcorder for external shooting to boot. I'm not sure if the Canon ZR 80 is still available, but the Canon ZR 700 also has this feature. Other camcorders do as well, but you'll need to do some research on that score.