Newbie = I surrender!?! - HELP!

[Dave in Indy]

I was, and am, looking 4 a reasonably simple yet effective means to capture VHS home movies & convert them over to VCD so I can yet later/eventually convert them to DVD; as the media & technology becomes even yet less expensive. To net it out, simple but effective.
I had tried Nero, but it seems like it has too many idiosyncrasies & is too particular about other applications - to play nice with others.
I was very excited about Ulead MovieFactoy, downloaded the trial, have had a couple of “Visual C++” and other application “runtime errors” with it & no response from their tech support & or web board. I have of course reviewed the quality capture coaching techniques so kindly illustrated to the left. I have the Huffy & Tmpenge, not too mention Adaptec/Roxio EZ CD 5 Dlux…. I’m just looking 4 the simplest yet most effective means. I have a p3 850MHz, 32GB, 256MB RAM, integrated ATI Rage Capture. I humbly confess my newbieness and prey for thought leadership for my woes.
Thanks in advance to any & all!
Please feel free to EMail me directly @ davidlawson@email.msn.com
Dave

[holistic]

""I was, and am, looking 4 a reasonably simple yet effective means to capture VHS home movies & convert them over to VCD so I can yet later/eventually convert them to DVD""

If your plan is to put your home movies on DVD don't bother with VCD , just make mpeg1 (or Mpeg2) and burn to CD for later authoring to DVD.

You WILL NOT get DVD quality from a VHS tape source so don't expect it. Your best choice , if you wish to put video to DVD, is to perhaps make MPEG2 files and burn them to CD. Depending on chosen 'Bitrate' you may get 20 minutes or so on a CD.

You failed to mention it ,but a fast harddrive is essential for analog capture of raw .AVI files. This is my preferred means of capture. Using Virtual Dub for capture/edit/frameserve and TMPEGEnc for Encoding.

holistic..

[Dave in Indy]

Thank you 4 your reply.
So U don't favor the Ulead or Nero package?
You'd rather use the combo of packages; if I understand U correctly?
If that's the case I'll most likely deffer to your experience. My attempts, although they have bore some fruit, have ended up w/poor MPEG2 HQ results w/even worse audio using the MiovieFactory. Using these highest setting quality possible f/MPEG 2 & CD Q audio it looks 2 be about 1GB for each 1 min. of video & my results have been awful. If I am understanding you correctly, it looks like I'm headed towards the grouping of applications vs: any 1 in an integrated fashion.

Thanks again & best regards,
Dave