Transfer VHS to DVD on your Mac and preserve your home movies. Converting VHS tapes and Hi8 or V8 home videos to digital video is easy! This VHS to DVD burning software made specifically for Mac offers unrivaled quality, saving you from the usual headache of finding ways to launch incompatible programs on your MacBook. You get everything you need right out of the package and the capture process is automatized, though the editing software isn't the most powerful out there.

I have over 30 VHS tapes, eight Hi-8 tapes, and a player for both formats. Would like to make DVDs of these movies. I have done lots of that. To get your VHS video into iMovie, use the Grassvalley ADVC300. With the ADVC300 Audio and Video go in, FireWire comes out. It also comes with a nice Macintosh application that works flawlessly with iMovie 06 and iDVD 09/11 (I have used it a few times with iMovie 11). The program that comes with the ADVC300 has some nice filters that can improve video and audio of the source material.

The ADVC300 will take Audio and Video from any source (VCR, Tivo, Satellite Receiver) and convert it to FireWire (iMovie will treat it like a camera). I would use iMovie 06 with iDVD 09/11, why? IMovie 09/11 uses 'single field processing' meaning every other horizontal line of the video is thrown out, which reduces the sharpness of the footage. IMovie 06 uses ALL of the image to form the video. If your primary workflow is editing DV clips and making DVDs, iMovie '06 is better suited. Your movie will arrive at iDVD in DV format, which is an ideal match for making a DVD: same resolution, same pixels aspect ratio, and original quality. If you share your movie from iMovie 09/11, it gets re-rendered at 640x480 or less, and then iDVD upscales it back to 720x480.

The end result is obviously not as good. IMovie 06 and iDVD 11 is a 'lossless' combination. I used Elgato capture to copy from VHS deck using the RCA jacks. Takes time because you run the tapes at real-speed. Then iMovie converted into files compatible with iDVD in my SnowLeopard (you may or may not have iDVD as it is not currently easily installed in ML or Mavericks). But Roxio Toast is often recommended as DVD-producer (not just burn to a DVD but also add special features and backgrounds).

I found that the VHS tape quality is critical to the input signal, and the multiple settings of FPS (frames per second) converted form and to. And other settings in the applications can be dizzting. You may need to experiment.

I cannot comment on Easy VHS to DVD3 but if price is only $60 compared to $100 for just Elgato without the DVD special-formatting/encoding software, Elgato + RoxioToast may give you more options. I will also ask that this be moved to the iMovie sub-forum to catch more eyes that have done this longer than I have. Frank Caggiano wrote: Are you sure neither player has a digital output? FireWire would be the most likely connector on that type of equipment.