I have roughly 500 hours of old VHS content (in short, my grandfather
has been in television for 50+ years...and he has saved up alot of his
content over the years. It's all on VHS...some of it old B&W copies,
etc). I want to digitize this content. Initially, I was thinking
Mini-DV was a good medium. Yet since i can purchase a 250Gig harddrive
for $175...i was wondering if just a few terrabytes of harddrive space
would work.

SO, my question is in 2 parts:

(i) If i used hard-drive space, what is good compression technology to
use? i don't want too much loss...yet it is VHS content...so it's not
the best quality to begin with. AND how much storage would 1 hour of
content take? (i.e. 10 gigs per hour, etc)

(ii) Any other digital medium i should be exploring? NOTE: i want to
be able to edit this content. It's not a requirement...if the cost is
out of wack (between hard drive & tapes)

thnx- dave

I have done some video recording to hd before, and had similair problems.
It really depends how you want to record it, there are heaps of
different formats available. My Tuner card used raw AVI, and took up a
heap of space, (ie: its like .wav compared to .mp3) but I used Tmpeg
to convert it to MPEG-2 quality, and was able to get an hour of very
high quality under 1 gig. If I were you I would be recording to DVD
Video, not Hard Disk. That way you dont have to worry about the hard
drive crashing etc. Just keep the disks in a safe place. I'd reccomend
using some type of CD-Labeler too if you have a bit of spare time.

Forgot to mention,  if you record to dvd, when you want to edit it,
rip it to hard drive, edit and burn to another disk. That wpould
probably be the easiest.

I recommend going with a "DV bridge" (search eBay for 'dvmc' to see my
favorite--Sony's DVMC.) This is a device with analog inputs (usually
composite video, S-Video, and L/R audio--the same connectors you have
on the back of your VCR) and a FireWire port. Connect it to a
FireWire-equipped Mac and use iMovie (free; comes with OS X) to
capture/edit and iDVD (free; comes with DVD-burner-equipped Macs) to
make DVDs, or connect to a Windows PC and use Microsoft's MovieMaker
(free download; microsoft.com/moviemaker; requires XP) to capture and
edit and (???) to make DVDs. (I only have first-hand experience with
Macs and don't know how to burn DVDs in Windows.)

Most video capture cards (like from Hauppauge (hauppauge.com) or ATI
(ati.com)) don't capture at as high a resolution and/or capture in an
already-compressed format like MPEG and even then, that video can
usually only be burned to VCD, which is a bit worse than VHS in
quality. Going from analog to raw firewire/DV uses no compression
(roughly 2 GB per 10 minutes) and output to DVD is in high-quality
MPEG2--same as commercial DVDs and satellite TV. A DVD made from a VHS
tape will be virtually indistinguishable from the original VHS tape
and won't degrade as badly. Just make several copies of each DVD for
backup/archiving. If you scratch one, make a duplicate right away from
your backups. No media (DVD, HD, or tape) will last forever, and
formats (media and encoding) change also--think of the trip from 78
rpm to 33/45 to reel-to-reel to 8-track to cassette to CD that
happened in just the last 50 years.

I think DVDs are the best compromise between quality, longevity,
portability, and cost. DVDs will play in devices for years to come,
like how CDs play in DVD players. DVDs play in XBoxes, PlayStations
2s, and even fancy car stereos)--compare that to how hard it is to get
video from a hard drive onto a TV. The above process is a bit
expensive, but if you were to take your tapes to a video transfer
service and ask them to copy them to DVD, that's what they'd probably
do. If you capture to a computer as AVI or MPEG, you need a computer
and the right software to play it back, versus a DVD player that you
can buy at WalMart for $35 any day of the week.

And I'd rather scratch a DVD or two and lose a few shows than drop a
400 GB hard drive and lose a lot more. If you want to get in and get
out, I'd recommend this: buy a Mac (new or used but capable), find a
Mac-knowledgable friend to help (if needed), convert and burn
everything, and sell the equipment a month later for 90% of what you
paid for it--cheaper than renting.

By the way, I have the above setup (Sony DVMC, 733 MHz PowerMac with
DVD-burner, OS X, iMovie, and iDVD) and use it to make DVDs out of TV
shows (Modern Marvels, Biography, etc.) and it works very well. Every
so often the DVDs have little digital artifacts and glitches, but it's
still miles better than tape.

very simple and almost free. purchase a tv card with a direct rip to
divx (very cheap) and simply convert it all on your hdd.

500 hours should be approx: 250 compact discs (thatz TOP QUALITY that
is not needed since it is VHS recording)
or
500 hours should be approx: 100 compact disc (and i'm taling 700mb here)
or should you choose to go with dvd it's only: 30-50DVD depending on
the quality of the RIP from the tv card.

so - the costs here are:
tv card + dvd burner: around 50$ or less...
have fun

This is very easy and simple. ther is lots of way to do this. 
way no 1:
you don't need alot har drive for saving your VHS. look if you have 40
GB right now in your computer then it will be alot. at least you have
to have 20 GB in you computer to do this. i did this alot time. still
i m doing it. i am doing thos WWF VHS cassets. and some other like my
marrige. i did alot of this work. ok forst of one if you want to save
those 500 hour of videos on your hard drive then that's totally bad
idea. because you don't want to stuck your computer. so best way is to
save those video on your dvd through dvd burner or if you don't have
dvd burner then save it on CD R. that's depend on you whichever you
choose. If you wanna choose dvd then buy it from ebay. if you are rich
then you can buy it from anywhere. but if you don't want to pay $50 to
$80 for those dvds then use cds bcuz you can get cds free like free
after rebate. that's wat i m doing. if you don't have dvd burner then
i strongly recommended you to use cd's to burn those. but ther is
problem on putting those videos on cd's. you need dvd player which can
play vcd's, svcds. and you can get those kind of dvd player for only
under $40. If you want to buy that kind of dvd play then go on
<www.bestbuy.com> and search for Cyberhome DVD Player. or if you
already have dvd plyer which can play this vcd (if you want to burn on
cd's). then you don't have to worry. but if you have dvd burner then
burn it on dvd bcuz probably you will need only 10 to 12 dvd's. and
for cd's you will need more. bcuz one dvd can keep 3 cd's in it. now
you need TV Tuner card. you can search on google to find a card. i
bought from <www.tigerdirect.com>  don't buy from ebay bcuz it will be
expensive because of shipping. ok then install it in your cpu in you
pci slots. make sure whenever you buy TV tuner card then you have same
output as back of your vcr. now install drivers and and connect your
VCR by plug in those audio,video wires in tv tunercard. and there will
be software installed in tv tunercard so when ever you connect then
your comeputer will find new hardware and then you need to follow
instruction and then you can watch you video on your pc. now inthat
software there will be saving or recording button then save it
wherever you want on your PC and then folle this instruction for every
cassets. but i recomanded you to don't buy hard drive  bcuz it can
mess up with your PC. so if you have 20 GB in your PC then one dvd can
save to 4.7 GB so record cassets on you PC till 4.7 GB and burn that
on your DVD then delet that 4.7 from you PC and record another dvds. i
am doing this way so i didn't have to buy new hard drive. If you wanna
burn on CD then record each clip till 65 minutes do not depend on MB
on cd you have to depend on minutes. 65 minutes video will be best.
udr Tmpeg or use VCDgear software. you can get information from google
about those softwre. they will chage your video format to good
quality. i recomanded you to use Tmpeg. then  burn on Cd or DVD.
whichever you choose. and now you can see on DVD player. make sure
your dvd player can play DVD+- R and DVD +-RW otherwise burned dvd's
will not work on dvd play. i baught that cyberhome dvd player and it
can play every formates. For burn on dvd or CD you can use Nero 6
ultra Edition. don't go to buy that software it's 30 days trial
Edition on website <www.nero.com> then you can put your those mpeg
converted file on dvd or cd. nero can burn on both dvd and cd. if you
want nero 6 permanent then let me know i'll give you serial code. i'll
give you serial code for nero.

other way:
above way was too long so when i learned it then i did couple time
this method. but not anymore. you can go to any electronic store and
buy DVD Record player. which can play and record dvd. you can buy
that. it's worth $250. and you can give that back in 15 to 30 days.
that depend on store. so you an buy that one and buy DVD RW then go
put your dvd blank media in dvd record player and put your casset in
you VCR. and just play record button in your dvd player and it will
burn dvd's. if you wanna choose this one then make sure you buy dvd RW
bcuz you can write over on DVD RW. bcuz sometime it mess up. it never
did with me bcuz i was useing dvd RW. after you record every cassets
then you can give that dvd player back to the store and you can get
your refund. so let me know which one you liked. and which one best
work for you.

You would want to digitize the tape first and then store the digital
video as MPEG-2.  Ultimately, you should store the video on DVD to
preserve it and prevent loss due to computer failure, etc.
There is a network of companies that can do this for you.  Try these groups:

http://www.takeonenetwork.com/alphavideo/
http://www.alphavideoservices.com
http://www.takeonenetwork.com/

Cheers!

Videodude