WinDVR vs. PVR-350

[RhoXS]

My goal is to transfer some old VHS tapes to DVD. These tapes have quite a bit of emotional value so I want to try to avoid any degradation of the video as it now exists on the VHS tapes.

It appears that there are two high quality solutions available for transfering the composite video to an MPEG-2 file; the Intervideo WinDVR software encoder and and the Hauppauge PVR-250/350 hardware encoder. I have more than sufficient horsepower (3 GHz) for the software encoder so I want to make the decision on what to use solely on which will provide the higher quality MPEG-2 file. I also do not want to let cost influence this decision. Again, quality is my over-riding priority. Suggestions would be appreciated.

[GeneralLeoFF]

I cant realy tell you what method is better for this as I never used that hardware encoder. But if you decide to do it with software I would use InterVideo WinDVD Recorder (also know as WinDVD 4.5) rather then WinDVR.

WinDVD Recorder is a bit newer then WinPVR and tends to give a bit better results (newer version of the MPEG-2 encoder). I have tried all the major comercial options to (WinPVR and Power VCR II) and WinDVD Recorder definitly seems to be the best real time software solution.

[locoinsf]

what kind of capture device are you hooking your vcr through?
Personally, haven't been impressed with Windvr 2 or 3. I ended up getting the dazzle dvc 150 after trying 4 different ones from adaptec, etc. It's got good hardware encoding, but the software is crap. By the time you read this, there should be an update to pinnacle's Studio 8 to make it compatible. (the companies just merged) I capture with dazzle's crappy Moviestar 5 right now and use Virtualdub to clean up the shortcomings from older vcr tapes.