Stand-alone DVR or Analog/Digital Converter Box for small # of VHS transfer

[dujyt]

Hello,

I've been reading these great forums and have learned a lot, but I'm still on the fence about what equipment set up would best suit my needs now and in the future.

I have less than 20 VHS home movies and around 10 8mm tapes from an old Samsung Hi8 camcorder that I would like to transfer and edit onto DVDs. I want to do advanced editing of the movies and have a strong interest in authoring DVDs in the future. Also, my family and I are not regular TV viewers and have really no interest in copying favorite shows for later viewing.

I will be buying a digital camcorder within the next 8-12 months, but I'd really like to work on getting those home movies transferred now. What would be the most practical hardware set-up to capture my analog files now for conversion and meet my needs in the future?

(I have a DVD burner on my Dell Precision 390 computer, a 200GB HD and a 160GB external HD, 2GB RAM. I also have Roxio and Nero software.)

Thanks for any advice you can give!

[fmctm1sw]

I've been very happy with my Canopus ADVC-50. Though if you buy a digital camcorder with an analog passthrough, you may render it useless in 8-12 months if you plan on getting one in that time. I used to use a simple TV tuner but had a lot of trouble keeping A/V sync. I tried all the tips, different settings, better sound card, etc, etc. I've never had a single problem with the Canopus. You may want something better than Nero or Roxio software, not only for editing but encoding. I'm not much up to speed on editors, I use the simple but effective virtualdub and avisynth.

[thecoalman]

I will be buying a digital camcorder within the next 8-12 months, but I'd really like to work on getting those home movies transferred now. What would be the most practical hardware set-up to capture my analog files now for conversion and meet my needs in the future?

Wait until you get the digital camcorder and make sure you get one with pass-thru. Basically you hook the analog cam to the disgital cam and it convert it to DV-AVI which can be recorded directly to tape or passed onto the computer via firewire or both.

Easy, good quality plus the money you save not buying a converter/recorder you can spend getting a better cam.