Capturing from Toshiba W808 S-VHS VCR into computer

[HDClown]

Greetings all. I am researching the best methods to import all of my VHS home movies into my computer. My VCR is a Toshiba W808 S-VHS deck which has DNR, but I do not believe it has TBC.

The VHS content I'll be working is old stuff recorded 15-20 years ago on camcorders of the era, most of it in LP mode. I probably have 25-30 tapes worth of stuff I want to capture.

Final format? Some of it needs to go out to DVD as it needs to be distributed to family. The bulk of it can stay in digital format on the computer. I have media streaming devices that can play just about any video format you can think of, and if I want to watch this stuff on my TV, I can use the media streamer.

I can do this on a PC or Mac. First thing I need to know is what hardware to use. I'd prefer to use something USB, but if I have to drop a PCI or PCI-E card into my PC, that wouldn't be a huge deal. I don't want to spend a ton of money because I'll do this once and never need to do it again. I'd say $200 tops, but ideally more like $100. I just want something that will do the best possible job without costing me an arm and a leg.

On the software side, I have both Vegas Pro 9 and Pinnacle Studio 14, and the usual free tools.

I currently own a Canon HV20 HDV camcorder and I can do A/D pass-through conversion on it, but it's composite video only, so I can't use s-video out from my Toshiba S-VHS VCR. This obvious brings the content in as DV. Did a test cap into Vegas and played it back on my PC at native resolution (did not maximize window to 1920x1200 that my monitor supports). In the window at native res, it looked about the same as it does when I watch it on a 20" 720p LCD set. I'm going to end up watching this stuff on my 50" Panasonic 1080p Plasma.

My Mac's run Snow Leopard and my PC runs Win7 64bit

[hech54]

Hauppauge PVR-250 or PVR-350 would be my vote. Captures to DVD compliant MPEG2 with no strain on your computer. Get one used on Ebay and download the software for free from Hauppauge's website.
Not sure about anything higher than Windows XP though.