Choosing new Burner need help please.

[anticowboyism]

Building a computer for DVD Authoring from VHS tapes. I've read most of the newb guides and faqs and comparison charts here, but I think it's time to talk with some real people. I just want some advice on how to get the best quality from VHS to DVD, so I'm looking at good Capture cards, capture software, editing/authoring software, best capture codecs/formats, conversion software, and dvd burner and burning software. Long list I know. I would really appreciate any specific hardware or software you can recommend.

So far I'm looking at:
Burners
Sony DRU500A
HP DVD200i
Philips DVDRW228
AOpen RW2412Pro

Capture card
Canopus ADVC-100 or advc-50
what firewire card?
capturing as DV

Software
TMPGEnc - conversion to MPEG2
Studio DV (is this the only capture software for DV?)
what authoring program?
VOB Instant DVD - UDF 1.02
I also heard the audio should be split before TMPGEnc to improve quality and compatability. I'm not sure what programs to use for this.

Thanks for any help!

[[_chef_]]

This is the hardware dvd-writer section.

I would choose the Sony DRU-500a with the latest fw for a Dual-Burner and/or the Ricoh 5125 (with rpc1 fw) as a DVD+R/W Burner from my own experiences and infos I've got.

BTW, do you think its really worth to transform all the stuff from "not-so-nice-looking Quality" VHS to DVD?? On Tv vhs looks ok but capture it and view on a Computer, oh well. You can eliminate most qualityproblems with some templates/add-ons e.g. for VirtualDub but the quality at all is not that best, I think. Anyway.

[musher70]

Huh sony? ok whatever...sony products suck...

I'll never buy another sony product ever again

I got a sony trinitron 32' tv, i get rap station thru speakers
I bought a sony vaio desktop, failed in 24 hrs
I had a boombox, and now the cassette get eaten up...
I got a sony dvd player i bought and i get constant errors
I buy sony cdr's and my tdk burner wont burn them
A friend of mine bought a dvd rom, and damn tray sticks...WTF

Who wants to buy a sony anyway, cool now, failures later...

Hey officemax has the cendynes today sun the 29th for $169 again
after rebates of 100$ i think....good day

[anticowboyism]

Ok, any other suggestions for burners? The Ricoh seemed to have mixed reviews. I'm looking for something stable, that has the best compatability with external DVD players. As for the question about why VHS to DVD, it's basically for archiving purposes. I don't expect to improve the VHS quality any, just to stop the degredation where it is, so these tapes can be viewed far into the future.

More suggestions please?
Which is the best of the 4 I mentioned?

[BarryHL]

In my opinion the best writer currently availible is the "Sony DRU-500a". it can write -R and +R both at 4x with no problems and if you are going to be doing DVD authoring the best format for you would be +R as you can easly add new chapters.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards.

Barry