VHS to digital format

I have my wedding DVD that I want to convert to DVD or .mpg or .mp4 format. I have read several forums that all have different ways of doing this. What is the easiest and cheapest way do do this? I currently have a 15" MBP with a 750GB HDD and 8 GB RAM. I also have a Sony camcorder DCR-TRV460. I'm not sure if the camcorder will do the pass through conversion, but since it is about 7 years old I doubt it. Does anyone make an AV or S-Video to mini display adapter so I can just plug in the svideo to the VCR out to the MBP mini display port and use QuickTime video capture? Is this even possible?

Do you mean DVD, or VHS? Slightly confused.
There are converters that will let you connect the camera to the Mac and capture the video.
Roxio make a complete package that is reasonably priced too. You are going to need software and an adaptor.

Amazon.com: Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for Mac: Software

Sorry...wedding VHS. I own toast 10 already. Does roxio sell just the hardware since I assume toast 10 does what the software in that bundle does?

I'm not sure, but Toast 10 may well convert the video, but I can't be certain as I haven't tried (I used a DVD recorder to record my VHS to digital, which is possibly a cheaper option).
You can buy the USB interfaces seperatly though, just be sure that the one you get is Mac compatible, which is why the Roxio package is decent at the price.

I don't know about that camcorder but from your description of it the quality of the video you would get would actually be WORSE than the VHS (yow!).

I would recommend an EyeTV converter (they're not expensive, you can often find them used in fact). Let's you bring the VHS in directly to iMovie for editing, and from there you can either:

1. Export to a high-quality QT format like Apple Intermediate Codec or
2. Just pass the project along to iDVD

For the former, once you have a video file of the VHS (in whatever format, just throw it into Toast (which you already have), select DVD, then burn (there will of course be an agonizingly long transcoding process so maybe go to sleep and check it the next morning. BE SURE to have LOTS and LOTS of free space available on your boot drive!).

Elegato Video Capture

Thanks for bringing this up. I need to get my wedding videos and my nephew's college games onto DVDs. Never even gave it a thought that I could use my brand new Mini to do this.....Excellent

Nola26 said:

I have my wedding DVD that I want to convert to DVD or .mpg or .mp4 format. I have read several forums that all have different ways of doing this. What is the easiest and cheapest way do do this? I currently have a 15" MBP with a 750GB HDD and 8 GB RAM. I also have a Sony camcorder DCR-TRV460. I'm not sure if the camcorder will do the pass through conversion, but since it is about 7 years old I doubt it. Does anyone make an AV or S-Video to mini display adapter so I can just plug in the svideo to the VCR out to the MBP mini display port and use QuickTime video capture? Is this even possible?

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You can also buy the Elgato Video Capture Device. I bought it at the Apple store but Amazon has it for a cheaper price. It comes with AV cords (red, yellow and white) on one end to connect to your camera or vcr, and a USB connection on the other end to connect to your Mac. It works great. Afterwards, you can edit it in iMovie.