Suggestions/Advice/Help purchasing a VCR for VHS>PC trans

[msimon7]

Hello. I'm planning on buying a VCR that i'd like to dedicate to being hooked up to my PC for transferring old VHS tapes to then be burned to DVD-R. all tapes are regular old VHS tapes (nothing "super", mostly EP recordings). is there any features/specs I should look for that would produce the best possible feed to the computer?
probably am going to go the route of VCR > Sony DCR-TRV20 Digital Camcorder (for a/d conversion) > PC via firewire, captured as AVI.
I've read here this should get me the best results. I've tried straight connection to my ATI AIW 128pro via s-video from direcTV captured as mpeg2 with below average results.
would an s-video output from the VCR yeild better quality output? or is that not a factor since the recording is already only average?
thanks very much for any help. marc

[leebo]

In MY opinion, transfering to the miniDV would degrade the video un-necessarily.

You didn't mention a budget.

For under $300 you can get a JVC SVHS VCR with a built in TBC (I'm not going to explain what this is for the thousandth time, search the Net).
Since you said the tapes were recorded in "EP" mode, you'll get much benefit from the use of a TBC.

Buy an inexpensive capture card, like the DC10+, and use the SVideo input (even though the tapes are regular VHS).

This will give you a time base corrected, AVI file.

Then you can use one of the mpeg conversion softwares mentioned on this site.

OR...

Get the JVC deck and a hardware mpeg encoder card, like the Dazzle DVC II ($250). It gives pretty good quality Mpeg2 and you won't have to wait forever for encoding. As long as you don't need to edit, you can go straight from VHS to MPEG2.

[msimon7]

thanks for the reply. I was checking out JVC's site and found the model HR-S7900U for $400. that was the cheapest one listed with a TBC, just need to try and find one on the net for hopefully under $300. searched and found some "refurbished" ones between 200-300, but not sure i'm comfortable with a "like new" one if i'm going to be spending that money. know of any good sites/distributors? it has 2MB Frame Memory, others for more $$$ have 4MB, think i'd be losing much going with 2MB istead of 4MB?
somewhere down the line I may by an mpeg encoder, but i think a good svhs vcr will do me good for now. thanks again.

[leebo]

Haven't checked JVC in months, but they used to have four models with TBC's. The least expensive was about $250, and the model # was something like 4800 (I think).