Converting VHS to MPEG

Question

I'm advising my mom purchase a new iMac to replace a 6 yr old Dell desktop. One of her main concerns is that she's currently in the middle of converting the family library of VHS tapes to digital video files. She's made some investments in hardware and software to do this work and has compatibility questions. I've assured her that it would "be easier on a mac" but am looking for a few answers myself.
Specifically, she's using a product from Pinnacle/Dazzle called a Digital Video Creator 150 (DVC150) which as I understand it converts the analog VHS input into a digital MPEG output that connects to the desktop via USB 2.0.
(A) Will this device (DVC150) work with OSX?
(B) What OSX software is needed? Would iMovie do this? The manufacturer of the DVC150 only ships Windows desktop software.
The closest I've come to an answer is page 15 of the iMovie 08 manual that describes recording directly into iMovie. If the USB DVC150 is interpreted as a "camera" and the picture is generated when you play the VHS, I could imagine this working.

Answer 1

(A) Will this device (DVC150) work with OSX?
While I believe the hardware would be compatible with MAC USB 2.0 drivers, I don't think you will find any current (or suitable older) software to capture the MPEG-2 streaming output from the device and store it as one or more files. Most early version from companies such as Pixela were plagued with problems and some, I believe, were written to only work with products made by specific manufacturers. Not even sure if they make Mac compatible software any more.
B) What OSX software is needed?
This would depend on you specific work flow. For instance, if you continue to do your capturing on the PC, make the files accessible to a Mac, and do your editing and burning on the Mac, then your would either need third-party, MPEG-based conversions software like MPEG Streamclip (free) w/the Apple QT MPEG-2 component ($20), FFmpegX (donation-ware), Visual Hub (pay-ware), etc. to manually convert the MPEG-2 files to a compatible, frame-level compression format. On the other hand, you could also try to "trick" iMovie '08 into importing and converting your files by using a DVD authoring application to turn your MPEG-2 video data into images of a DVD VIDEO_TS folder which you will have to buy.
Would iMovie do this?
Not with realtime streaming data. The iMovie '08 requires files to be stored to some medium such as a DVD, HDD, or memory card.
The manufacturer of the DVC150 only ships Windows desktop software.
This is one of your main problems. Nearly all editing on a Mac is done by editors capable of editing individual frames. Even the GOP MPEG-2 video it can import must be converted to "fames" of video data which correspond to specific "frames" of audio data in order to be edited.
The closest I've come to an answer is page 15 of the iMovie 08 manual that describes recording directly into iMovie. If the USB DVC150 is interpreted as a "camera" and the picture is generated when you play the VHS, I could imagine this working.
As indicated above, this requires the data be encapsulated in a file container, segments of which can be buffered and processed as needed. This cannot be done at anything approaching "real time" on most Mac platforms.
If I were faced with your situation and did buy a Mac, I would simply continue to use the PC as a capture only device but store the data on an external FW800/FW400/USB2.0 hard drive if available. That drive could then be connected to the Mac and the files (assuming they are of suitable length) converted for editing and distribution as needed. Frankly, your real problem was selecting an MPEG-2 ADC converter device in the first place. Had it been one of the more common FireWire DV ADC devices, it could have been simply plugged in to the Mac and worked with any editor and/or QT Pro, as well as, any number of capture utilities and third-party editors. Another piece of advice is to never make major changes in your work flow in the middle of a project.... From the "For What It's Worth Department."