Very Basic VHS capture quetions

[flyguy]

I have about 30 VHS-C tapes I want to digitize. I've spent 3-4 hours on this site and nearly all of the info is beyond me.
About 10 years ago I bought a Sony RDR-VX535 with the plan of transferring them to DVD but never got around to it.
Would this machine make an acceptable copy?
Would there be a simple way to capture to my computer to save in a lossless format?
I use an iMac.
Thanks for your patience with a rookie.

[DB83]

I'll give you some fairly basic answers.

Only you will be able to tell if a dub from VHS-c in that Sony will be acceptable. With any VHS transfer there is some visual noise which you can attempt to remove later although from a dvd will never be the best approach.

Capturing to your computer as you may already have read requires a capture device. Most devices and software is focused on Windows systems and I see you have a Mac. In fact this section of the forum is for Windows systems although some readers will have experience of Mac systems and might be able to help you further. There is a dedicated Mac forum here and it would be better to ask there rather than here.

[lordsmurf]

This quality you'll get will be pretty lousy.
Timing errors (from not using TBC) are the worst, and those cannot be corrected after capture.
A better VCR is suggested.

Mac is fine for some tasks, but capture isn't one of them. There is no lossless workflow for Mac, only lossy DV.