VHS home movies to DVD and....?

[sdineen]

I have old, home VHS movies I converted to DVD, on highest quality via my panasonic dvd recorder unit and now I want to convert them (.vob s) to the highest possibly quality AVI, DV-AVI, Xvid, etc. to store them on a hard disk. Maybe edit them. etc. from there, but honestly a big point is I don't want any tape/dvd media lying around and getting trashed. My kids are like a wrecking crew and the house is small.

1. Should I just be copying these new DVDs/DVD files to the Hard Drive and call it a night? Leave them as is VOB/INFO, files in their own folders, etc?
2. Would I be better off converting the DVD's to Xvid. mk4, dv-avi or other format for better quality, editing features, size improvements?
3. Is there a whole nother option I sould be investigating to get these VHS tapes copied from before they fully degrade?

I realize that each converstion puts a dent in quality. These are really important tapes, so want to make sure I do the right thing to get them archived correctly, at the best they could be. Storage space is not a problem (multiple TBs)

And input and advice super welcomed. Thanks!

[Vidd]

Copy the DVDs to the hard drives. This is a good backup if the discs fail. Conversion to another format from the DVD would lessen the quality.

High bitrate MPEG-2 is still compression. If you wanted to preserve the tapes to the fullest quality you could get a high end capture card and capture lossless. Lagarith is a good choice for lossless storage with PCM audio. Of course the quality really depends on your VCR unit. A high end model with a TBC can really be an improvement.

[edDV]

Since you have already captured the VHS tapes to DVD MPeg2, just copy the DVD (VOB, IFO, BUP or disk image) to the hard drive. If you want to edit later you will have various options at that time.

1 Demux VOBs to MPeg2 and edit MPeg2
2 Conversion to DV or digital intermediate
3 Audio enhancement

I'd save the tapes in case you want attempt recapture at some time in the future.

[sdineen]

Thanks Gentleman. I'll leave as is for the moment on DVD. I have a Hauppauge HVR1250 Hybrid TV Tuner card. Last capture tests I did with it were not that great, so guessing it's not in the definition of "high end". Also not dying to buy another VCR at the moment, having just brought a Digital8 camcorder for the Hi8 digital conversions.
Thanks again!