Digital Camcorder?

[The village idiot]

First let me say that I didn't really read this entire post but, I would suggest some sort of DV route.

Also if you are really concerned about the condition of the tapes. You might want to consider having them done by a "professional" place like Industrial Color Labs or similar (note the quotes on professional). The real professional tape dubbing, restoration places are a little expensive but, there are a lot of things that can improve old tape. Like running them through a cleaner first, etc. Yes I've had to do it with old tape. Not VHS but old 3/4 inch Umatic stuff. Sometimes you just have to send them away. if the tapes are still in good shape, then by all means cap. the suckers. But if you are getting excessive drop outs, you might think about having them done.

[TOMMO]

You are being given good advice. None are wrong. However, there are certain advantages to buying a PC first.

If you do, it needs plenty of RAM at least 512MB. A second dedicated hard drive for capturing video onto. Much better results that way. And obviously a good processor speed for encoding. If buying a capture card to capture your existing footage, try to get one that capture both analogue and DV, don't pay over the odds for one, a firewire card is an inexpensive addon later.

What would you have more fun with, a new computer (probably) or a new dv camcorder. When you have answered that question for yourself you have your decision.