Best Quality approach for xfer of home video

[ironman.]

Hello,
I plan to transfer a large collection of both 8mm and MiniDV home videos to DVD.

I plan to use a firewire cable for both camcorders.

My goals are:
1) Get the best quality video and audio....regardless of disk space.
2) Create a digital copy of the home videos on a hard drive
3) Create a set of DVDs of each video (for playback on my television or to mail to grandparents)

I am totally new at this....I have Windows Movie Maker, but do not understand the options for the best video file type. So, my questions are:
1) Can I use Windows Movie Maker to get the best quality video?
2) If so, what additional advice do you have? if not, what should I do?
3) Can I make a copy to my computer and burn the DVD at the same time?

I looked through this site's "Guides", but was a bit overwhelmed....didn't find an answer to my questions.

Any advice is appreciated!

[jagabo]

Capture as DV AVI with DVIO, WinDV or similar app. That will get you an exact copy of the digital video on the tape in an AVI file. WMM can be used for this just be sure it's set to capture DV AVI. Archive these files.

After capturing encode as MPEG 2 for DVD with the tools of your choice. Encode as interlaced, bottome field first. You don't want to convert to MPEG 2 while capturing. To do so in realtime like that the MPEG encoder will take shortcuts, reducing quality.