Creating digital copies of VHS or BETA

[tinker]

We are trying to create digital copies of old vhs and beta advertisements. We're considering the Dazzle Hollywood USB 2.0 but it appears only to be in the UK market presently (we're in the US). See http://www.dazzle.com. The Hollywood DV-Bridge is available but we're hesitant since the file output is .dv and we really need .avi or .mpeg.

My questions are as follows. . .
1. Is this the best product for our task?
2. Can .dv be converted to .avi or .mpg? and how is that done?

Thanks so much for your help!
Sylvia

[jansensan]

I don't know if any of your outputs are what you're looking for... If I'm not mistaken DV are from digital cameras, whereas VHS or BETA arent digital... I would thing you either need to find a VCR with DV output to plug into your computer to record your video (good luck for that one), find a VCR with s-Vid output to record (more chances) or what I think is the best option (and that I've used before) is tô plug your RCA output from your VCR to your RCA Input into your video card (tell me you at least got that) so you can use software to record raw video files. Afterwards, either compress it with codecs or keep it raw (humongous file).