Convert analog & digital tapes to Flash/.flv, no DVD - How would you do

[dsutton]

I have a large collection of VHS, SVHS, 8mm, Hi-8, and DV tapes that I want to convert to flv for use on an archive website that i'm building. I don't care about DVDs, as I want my archive available online for friends and family all over the world to see.

I have access to a JVC S-VHS vcr, a Sony TRS-800 Hi-8 camcorder, and a Canon Optura 400 DV Cam. I have an old Pinnacle Dazzle 80 capture device that's probably not worth using, and an Archos personal media player with analog and digital inputs that allow me to convert on the fly to .avi. I've tried using the Archos, but it's a little sketchy, and then when i convert the videos to .flv, there's no audio, which could be a function of my settings with Adobe's Flash Media Encoder (I need to try another .flv encoder to see how it works).

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a suitable solution for me that would work well with the varying analog and digital formats I intend to convert, as I'd like to minimize my expense. I'm thinking that a Canopus ADVC110 may be good to have, but I know little about it and I'm unsure if it would work well for my needs.

Again, i don't care about converting to DVD, but I want my resulting flash vids to be decent quality.

I have a fast quad core PC running windows 7, which may present some problems, in which case I'm hopeful i can use the Windows XP emulator. Otherwise, I'll have to put a strong XP machine in there to take over.

Thanks for any assistance. I appreciate it.

[aedipuss]

does the canon do analog-digital passthrough? if so i'd run everything through it and capture as DVavi. then use something like handbrake/mediacoder/xmediarecode to convert to 320x240 mp4 with aac or mp3 audio. a slightly better format than flv as in if someone wants to download your vids they may be able to use them on more devices without having to recode again.

[dsutton]

Thanks for the reply - just checked online and learned that the Optura 400 does indeed have analog-digital passthrough. So I'll try it that way. And good point about maybe not using .flv.