VHS to laptop

[rodef]

I have a bunch of old VHS tapes that I would like to transfer to my laptop and burn onto DVD.

My VHS player supports s-video out. But my laptop (Dell XPS M1530) only has USB and firewire.

What is the best option, e.g. expresscard with tv card to accept the s-video signal or buy a dedicated box such as the Canopus ADVC110?

Thanks.

[rodef]

Can anyone help please?

[invisible]

Get the Canopus ADVC110, along with some kind of capture software. I used Nero 7 Vision when I did it long ago.
No need for drivers with the Canopus, and it supports firewire. Just plug and play. Plus it has a feature to bypass macrovision (search for it yourself).
Don't expect to get a great quality transfer, it will still look like a VHS. I can tell you from experience, you will get NO dropped frames or out of sync audio with it. It's a great piece of equipment.

[ViciousXUSMC]

You just need some sort of capture device.

I would greatly recommend this one: Amazon.com: Hauppauge 1212 HD-PVR High Definition Personal Video Recorder: Electronics

Reasons:

1.) It supports HD so for future capture like HDTV or Game Consoles you have a ton more flexability.

2.) Its totally self reliant, all capture cards use your computer to process the information as its captured. It uses the computers cpu to compress and transcode, this can take a very heavy toll on your computer and make lesser machines cause audio sync issues and other problems. The HD-PVR uses its own hardware to do all of this, it will only be just moving the data to the computer via USB as if your were coping files from an external drive.