Should I get DVStorm 2 Pro for $225

[chewybacca]

Noob amateur here, I'm starting to build my VHS to DVD setup for about 15 home movies currently on VHS which are really special to me and my sisters & dad.

Was looking for a Canopus ADVC-300, but ended up finding a Canopus DVStorm 2 Pro for $225, is it worth that price?

My current stuff

Player -> JVC HM-DH40000U
TBC -> DataVideo TBC-1000
Capture -> Looking! (Trying to decide between DV hardware capture or ATI 600 USB Tuner)

Thanks for any advice, I'll take it!

[JoRodd]

I have both the ADVC 300 and the Storm 2. The advantage of the ADVC is that you can do some color correction during the capture. With the Storm 2, you would need to do the corrections with the software. Also, the ADVC removes Macrovision encryption which may be useful for future projects. In addition, with the ADVC, you will not need the DataVideo TBC. The ADVC is superior. You can go from your JVC to the ADVC to your computer via Firewire.

Good luck.

[Cornucopia]

@JoRodd,
I have a few amendations/corrections for you:
Early models of the ADVC line will ignore/remove Macrovision, but most later models will NOT.
Also, I and many others here, would STRONGLY recommend that you will still need a true TBC (although the Datavideo is kind of on the low end of real TBCs). Any kind of Analog-to-Digital conversion locks in the frame rate, and so could be considered a Frame Synchronizer, but they really don't have the smarts to correct the timebase errors. What they more often do is Burn those errors into the video, making them harder to remove.

I also have a Storm2. It is handy to have, but I also would find an ADVC-100/110 or -300 to be more portable, and consequently more versatile, even though PC card inputs ought to normally be more versatile. I still like mine though because it (storm2) has realtime hardware MPEG2 encoding as well as allowing Analog in to Uncompressed/Lossless option if I want it, whereas an ADVC is just firewire and just DV compression.

Is it worth the price? Well, you should figure in the cost of the software/drivers required for it (which are harder to come by now) and setup/configuration/troubleshooting time. DV/Firewire from an ADVC will just work right out of the box with most NLE apps (also WinDV, etc).

Scott