Camcorder or DV converter for VHS to DV conversion?

Question

I have home movies on VHS tapes that I have already converted to DVD's, but I decided I would like to import the VHS videos into iMovie as DV files as a long term backup/storage plan for my home movies before the tapes degrade. I already have a Sony mini-DV camcorder that has passthrough capability. I was wondering if the quality of the DV files created is any better with a DV converter (say like a Canopus model) or is there little discernable quality difference in the conversion process from analog to digital between using the camcorder or using a DV converter. I don't want to do much editing, I just want the best quality. If it's better with a DV converter, I'll buy one.
Thanks!

Answer 1

I am just finishing up doing the same thing as you: a long process of converting ALL of my old VHS home movies to digital in the form of DV tapes.
I second the recommendation to do it with a digital camcorder, and not use the pass-through method, but record from the VHS tape to DV tapes. This gives you a digital archive of your original VHS tapes. The DV tapes are small, easy to store, instantly available for importing into iMovie. And, when technology changes, your digital movies are ready to be brought into whatever is to come. DVDs may go the way of VHS tapes in a few years, and we will all have to convert our now 'old' DVDs!
And (something I highly recommend that you do), after I import my converted digital DV footage into iMovie, create my movies, create and burn my DVDs, I also 'share' the created iMovie back to my camcorder, saving the iMovies to DV tape. I am concerned that something may happen to my DVDs, even though I make several copies of each one. I want to have my created movies preserved in several digital forms.
Yes, that means a few more DV tapes, but now I have digital versions of the original old VHS tapes that were beginning to degrade, AND, I have my creative movies with titles, transitions, stills and music all preserved on DV tape, so I do not have to recreate any of my movies.
I do save all my iDVD projects as Disk Images, and store those on my external drive. Even if my movies bloat to over 40 GB, they are preserved at 4.7GB max (for my single layer DVDs) on my DVD Disk Images, with no loss of quality. From the disk images, I can burn another copy of any DVD that I have made.
I must have converted at least 120 hours of VHS footage. It didn't seem that long at the time. I would just set the camcorder to record the footage, return about 55minutes later to see where to break the recording to change the tape, and continue. Doing it all over a few weeks time seemed easiest. I also had a 'dedicated' camcorder for it, so my recording didn't interfere with taking movies of current family events!
Have fun...one of the best parts is getting to see footage that you have forgotten. My oldest tapes were of my daughter at age 2 3/4 and my son as a newborn, 25 years ago!