Usually I suggest the tutorials over at WebMonkey to multimedia authoring virgins.
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/multimedia/video/index.html
I would suggest getting an ATI TV WONDER USB
http://www.ati.com/products/pc/tvwonderusb/index.html
You could download a guide for $5: http://www.gnometomes.com/tome/004302.html . It focuses on the conversion to DVD but I assume that you could just skip the final step.
— Neil T. 
Open source format – divx, or xvid.
get it caught in mpg, then http://doom9.org can teach you encode it. plus it’s a lot smaller than mpg format.
— Matt
1. Hook up a miniDV camcorder to your VCR, and record your footage onto the camcorder.
2. Use iMovie to import it into your Mac.
3. Edit.
4. Export it as a QuickTime movie.
— lunarboy
Or you could even try http://doom9.net
My bad!
— Matt
Mark, lunarboy’s Mac suggestion is probably the best if you have a MiniDV camcorder (or can borrow one from a friend). I was able to transfer MiniDV content to a CD in Quicktime format (with some editing and stuff) in about an hour at an Internet Cafe. I found it extremely easy to use, and I don’t own a Mac.
If you’re willing to spend some money, I personally think Formac’s Studio DV video converters are tops. Unlike most hardware of this kind, they can bring your video directly into iMovie. If you get the Studio DV/TV, you have the added benefit of being able to turn your Mac into a TiVo. Combine that with a SuperDrive, and the bootleg DVD possibilities are endless :-)!
I’ve been meaning to get one for awhile now…
I can also vouch for #4 above. Once you are in iMovie, it’s easy to use Toast to burn it to a video CD or jump to iDVD to burn to a DVD.
Capture card (or peripheral) is the key…
Once its in the computer I’m sure iMovie and I know Windows Movie Maker (2.0) is relitively easy. As far as file format MPEG (1, 2, or 4) seems to be the only viable open formats.
Windows Media 9 seems to have the best quality+compression and gaining acceptance on a broad scale (outside the PC), but open it’s not.
— Jonathan Porter
Or, you could always be lazy as hell and take it to your local video production house and have them burn it to either DVD or VCD. We do it all the time. I know you’re a DIY kind of guy, but sometimes you wanna save the hours. Plus, if it’s not something you’re gonna do often, you’d save money in the long run.
— Shannon
Wow, not many useful answers here. What you need is a USB peripheral for caturing video such as http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp?productid=337652
— pb
One thing that wasn’t explicitly mentioned about miniDV cameras is that some of them allow you to directly convert from Analog to Digital without going to tape first. This will save a you step by letting you capture video from your Analog VCR to your Firewire computer via the miniDV camera. I know many of the Canon DV cameras have this feature.
— icb
Send it to me and I’ll convert it for you. No charge. Hey – I love seeing people risk their lives.
eme if interested: producer@videoblog.tv
— Producer
I thought that with OSX, all you had to do was wave your mouse in the general direction of the VHS tape, and it would magically suck the video into your machine and turn it into a humorous art film with backround music and titles?
No?
Okay, then your best bet is probably either a DV camera, or an inexpensive USB (or Firewire?) device that will get analog video out of your VCR.
See Tiger Direct, Micro Warehouse, or any other similar vendor for tons of options (of widely varying quality).
— Dougal
Wow, you know you are popular when you simply have to ask something on your own site to get answers to totally unrelated subjects!
Personally I’ve got a Hauppauge (http://www.hauppauge.com/) WinTV PCI Stereo card that cost around £60 UKP. Based on the Brooktree 8XXX chipset, it captures video very nicely and is also excellent for watching TV on the PC :)(comes with a remote too). As you’ll be capturing the audio through the soundcard you won’t need the Nicam stereo, so just buy the cheapest PCI one that you can find; the WinTV Go OEM is around £20 UKP/ $30 USD which is a bargain.
The other alternative, as everyone else has mentioned, is to pipe it through a (mini) DV camera – the results are supposed to be excellent.
I’d *highly recommend* reading this guide over at Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/guide/audio-visual/videocapturing/vidcap-1.html
Unfortunately only part one is up so far, but it should be enough to get it captured into a high quality non-compressed format such as Huffy, which’d be spot-on for archival purposes. Note it’s fairly complicated stuff if you’re not into graphics, but it’s a very thorough guide and explains everything well. Good luck with that, post some MPGs of the ‘diving when you’ve got it capped :)
For the ?I would prefer that the end result be in an open format that is fully viewable by Free Software, if such a format exists? part:
No, it doesn?t exist quite yet, but you’re looking for Theora (http://www.theora.org/), brought to you by xiph.org, the same folks behind Ogg Vorbis. It?s still being worked on in between the libogg changes that need to be made and the contracts we?re filling to get a working Vorbis handheld player out there.
Oh, and Mark: Seems your commenting system will break on Real Quotes (as entered in Safari) and (http://foo.com/) (the trailing parenthesis gets included in the URL)
For the conversion part I’d go with #4. Here’s a diagram of what the setup would look like (as far as I remember): http://deadpen.net/images/temp/direct_to_video.jpg
— pdd
I would suggest that you make two versions from the VHS. Create a large, high quality one as the archive, it would last longer than the tape. From that make a small, low quality one to be post on the website. I would put the high quality one in quicktime format and/or on a dvd. And the low quality one in quicktime and/or wmv. Yes, M$ wmv, it compresses well, and you don’t have to worry about all those dozens of codec.
— Francis
A quick correction to #16 – I should’ve said “lossless” rather than non-compressed (duh!), and a note to #19:
For archiving I’d go for Huffy over WMV, as Huffy is lossless (important for an archival master that may be re-edited) and open-source, while WMV is lossy and proprietry. Pity it’s only available as a win32 codec for the moment, but I’d imagine that there are also a few lossless formats available for Mac.
Alternatively, archiving the DV stream (if encoding through a DV camera) may be possible, which’d I reckon’d be “good enough”.
Excellent diagram in #18 though :) Makes me laugh when I compare it to my capturing suggestion, #18 looks a LOT easier!!
#18 is a nice diagram, but where the heck is he gonna get a VRC from?
http://www.public.asu.edu/~nate123/mil_vehicles/Military_radio.htm
Also, the picture in your diagram doesn’t really look like a VRC, it actually reminds me more of a video cassette reco… oh.
:-)
— dave
> open format that is fully viewable by Free Software, if such a format exists.
I would suggest Quicktime (.mov) for the format posted on your site. Free viewers for mac/win and the plugin is normally installed in everyone’s browsers. Also, you can embed html that will auto-locate the plugin installer in case it isn’t installed. See Quicktime section of Apple’s site. Don’t know about support for other platforms.
As has been mentioned in previous comments, using a mini-dv video camera with a pass-through mode is the easiest. I’ve done it with my Sony TRV-30. But, you will need a video capture card and a mini-dv video camera.
— Hans