VHS to DVD project. Reccomendations for hardware.

Ok we have a bunch of old home-made VHS's. One capturing my life from the time I was very little. I'm 15 1/2 now and now relize the effects of magnetic decay. We barely watch these tapes but when we do, the quality is becoming poor. I know if something isn't done with converting these tapes to DVD, they will be soon lost to the ages.

Now my dad is really old fashioned so we don't have that good of a computer but I think it would still be able to do some basic VHS ripping and DVD burning.

My system stats are (I used belarc advisor for these):



I know I'll need to DVD burner. Walmart is selling a HP one for around $100 bucks so I may be able to convince my dad to buy it. I also know I need a video capture card in which I can hook up my VCR to. Also some good and cheap software for it (might be bundled with the burner).

Can you guys please help me find a cheap but high quality video capture card and software. Also what are your opinion on this? I know my computer isn't the best (600mhz processor, 320mb of ram, windows 98 SE), but I know for sure my dad won't buy a new computer. Time really isn't a big deal so I can put up with the slow machine. I know when this computer first came out they were using computer this slow for video editing.

[EDIT]
I found these video capture cards off of Froogle:

http://store.pcpowerzone.com/pipctvandvic.html

http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=397316&store=pcmall&source=pwbfroogle&adcampaign=email,pwbfroogle

http://www.topmicrousa.com/210100209.html

I'm pretty sure this will make the system stat (I know the adpec one will).

How do these look?
[/EDIT]

I fooled around with transferring VHS to DVD. I picked up an old ATI All in wonder card off Ebay for cheap. It works but it's slow, time consuming and the quality is only fair. There was always some noise at the bottom of the screen.

You need to have a fairly large hard drive swap file. At least 5 GB. You have 16 GB free so you'll be ok, but it's tight. $100 is too much for a DVD burner. Find out if your home DVD player can play -R or +R or both. You can buy a dual format DVD burner that burns +R and -R dvds for about $60. Then buy the blank DVD's that will work on your DVD player.


http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=27-152-032&DEPA=0

So what kind of noise was it? Was it just because the VHS's were crappy in the first place? And how much time per tape to get fully converted was it about?

The VHS tapes are fine, the transfer to digital introduces some noise lines on the bottom the screen. It's a real time transfer from VHS to digital plus the time to burn the DVD, maybe another 20 minutes.

So how annoying/noticeable is the noise and is there any way to get ride of it? What's the best quality I can get mpg-2?

[edit]
Oh yeah what kind of capture card you use?
[/edit]

I used to work with a guy that started up a VHS to DVD conversion business. He spent a lot of money on specialized hardware and software and he always had noise problems. The quality is acceptable if you're archiving your VHS tapes.

My capture card is a 4mb ATI all in wonder.

CompUSA has a standalone VHS/DVD recorder that can go from DVD to VHS and VHS to DVD>. On sale for $200.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=316975&pfp=BROWSE

Wel I wanted to get a DVD burner for making backups and stuff like that. Well thanks for the advice.