Ok, I'm ready to convert from VHS to DVD... I have the money

[Gaelin]

I bought the Dazzle 80 about a month and a half ago. I received my new Pinnacle Moviebox last week. (i'll be heading over to ebay with the dazzle soon).

The Dazzle makes a fair to okay VCD, but the DVDs just plain sucked. Luckily I only made tests on +RW and nothing permanent. The Dazzle's problem is that it captures ONLY at one very small resolution. I think 352x288. I don't recall exactly, but I know it's smaller than even the VCD standard. The VCD played great at that size on my computer. But anything larger and the picture was very pixilated. Even worse on my 27' TV. I used both the software that came with it--Moviestar 5 and Virtualdub to TMPG to MySonic (came with the computer). The results were the same for both.

So far the tests I've run using Pinnacle are excellent. I captured the same show from VHS and the results are excellent. Tho, it takes forever. For a 1hr capture, it took 5 hrs for the final DVD. (I'm looking for a way around this). Tho, the DVD looked great, the VCD came out as marginal. But so far, I've only used the Pinnacle software. I plan to try others this weekend.
I got the Pinnacle from HSN for $178 plus $9 shipping (down from the $200. I had a coupon.) Using their flexpay, I can spread the full payment over 4 months. So, so far I'm only out $50.

Gaelin

What about trying Dazzle Digital Video Creator 80 for $65. It converts analog VHS to digital. Comes with software to capture, edit, and burn onto DVDs. I bought it but have not tried it yet. See it here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005UK8W/ref%3Dnosim/lksmsubsite-sub-ce-asin-...476669-5887012

[MachineMan]

I had a Dazzle DVC100 last year. I returned it becuase I had to use lots of other softwares (TMPGEnc, Ulead...) to get the quality and functionality I wanted. Not to mention the WinXP USB driver issues that took forever to solve.