Well, good news!  It seems that opinion on the Internets(TM) is that the best thing you can do to capture old VHS tapes is to get a professional or "prosumer" VCR, which I just happen to already have.  :)  I'm using a JVC SR-V10U, which I believe qualifies as "prosumer".  :)  It has some noise reduction and picture stabilization features I'll be taking advantage of.  I think the only thing it doesn't have is time base correction, and unfortunately neither does my Canopus, but I might have a time base corrector lurking in the shadows somewhere I might use if necessary.  In any case, I will be digitizing a few short clips with various settings, see which works out best, and get my claws around what video software will be best at enhancing the episodes.

Well, I suppose stranger things have happened, but Somtow Sucharitkul, accomplished writer and composer, has actually contacted Lava Dome Five to see if anyone had copies of the episodes of Dinosaucers that he had written.  Well, that rekindled my desire to digitize all those episodes in the best quality possible, so the project is alive once more!  Somtow said he'd be willing to do audio commentary on the episodes, too! 

I've just recently picked up a Canopus ADVC110 video digitization unit after doing some research online and, finally, FINALLY!  I have a video capture device I'm actually happy with!  The quality is excellent, and it's a generic Firewire device, so it'll work with any video editing software that supports capture.  You may recall that I had a fit about Pinnacle, as their capture device had proprietary drives (like so many others), and the software I had to use sucked ass.  The tear about the Pinnacle was that the quality was really good, so I hated to move away from it.  Well, now I'm finally free to use whatever software I want, and I'm leaning towards Vegas and that cheaper Magix stuff to do cleanup and editing and DVD production for the project.

Of course, this also does mean that I'm going to go back and recapture everything again.  :)  *dodges tomatoes*  Look, I know, I know, but I've done more research, not only into getting the best video capture device I can afford, but also into the settings on the high-end JVC "Professional Series" SVHS deck I'm using to playback the tapes on, so now that I have my settings correct and my ducks all lined up in a row, it's time to capture "for real" this time.  The one bonus is that all the tapes I've captured from so far, at least I have a catalog of what's on them now...there are still some Somtow episodes I need to locate as well, so I'll be doing an inventory of my episodes for the immediate future.

In any case, I'm really excited that I finally have a video capture setup I can be happy about, and I'll be capturing and cleaning up the episodes to ship off to Somtow for him to do audio commentary on very shortly.