[AV Media Matters] Preserving old vhs video

[Tom Nelson <tnelson@billingsgazette.com>]

i Just purchased a 733 mzh with 128 megs of ram and 26 gig hard drive.
My intention is to transfer analog video images to digital and put them
on a stable storage medium. i.e. CD-ROM or DVD. I have come to believe
the MPEG2 is the correct compression format.  The current price of the
MPEG2 boards is a limiting factor.  I may be a little ahead of my time
but my analog tapes aren't getting any younger and my kids are getting
older.  I have even thought of purchasing a Sony Digital camera, which
permits transfer from analog to digital, and adding a firewire
connection to my computer.  That would be less expensive than
the current price of the MPEG2 boards.  Does anybody have any
recommendations that won't send me to the poorhouse?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Tom Nelson