Analog Capture Hardware Opinion/Help Requested

[VoxOrion]

Greetings,

I'm a long time VDCHelp/DVDRHelp user - and before now, I've always been able to find the information I need by searching the "How To" and "Forum" sections.

In this case, however - I have a specific enough need (and I'm in strange enough waters) that I feel it's worth coming to the Mac Video Jedis directly.

I've been a PC user for fifteen years - but recently purchased a Mac - PowerBook 17", 1Ghz, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD - and a Matshita DVD-R SuperDrive (running OS X Jaguar).

It's time to convert all of the home movies to DVD - I'm using a Sony HandiCam Analog Hi8 that only has composite (RCA) outs.

I'd like to purchase a capture device - because this is a notebook - external is obviously necessary.

My options are: USB, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, PC Card.

I find the market for these devices to be confusing, varied, and 'propriatary' -

I know giving advice on cost vs. value is hard in a forum like this (too relative) - here are some quick qualifiers:

Order of Importance
1. Quality
2. Cost
3. Speed
I won't use the capture function a whole whole lot...
...but i don't want a piece of crap...
I'm willing to spend into the low hundreds - but no where near the point where it would be more cost effective to just go buy a DV Camera.

Any and all advice, experiences, jokes, puns, non-sequiters, or just flat out wisdom is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance![/b]

[pants]

if you're not doing much on editing these, just a straight dumps to dvd, with few cuts, you might look into the ads instant dvd capture card, search here for more info. at work i use a canopus advc-100 or 1000 ?? it's a analog to digital converter box. not sure on price. analog ins then fw connection. worked with fcp3 not sure if with fcp4, haven't tried.
the quality with these is great. don't knw if you use fcp or imovie though. www.2-pop.com there forums might have good reviews/suggestions too.

but it's better if you can go analog straight to mpeg2, and not analog to dv to mpeg2. so the instant dd might givebetter results. but if you want to do alotof editing to these clips, the canopus would be better.

also panasonic set top dvd recorders are coming down in price. and costco is carrying them too. you might check these out too. realtime encoding and great quality. cuts only basic editing, basic menus. very nice. some with and without harddrives too.