Im not too sure where to start to get my VHS tapes onto DVD. I appreciate any help especially in areas listed below:
Amount of Harddrive space
Hardware required including wires needed from VCR to my PC
How to have the best or the most clearest (crystal 
) copy
Software to use so i can edit the video
make the sound quality a lot higher without distortion (any ideas on dolby etc if possible at all)
not very important but how about adding some kind of protection to them?
Thanks
The simplest PC solution is to buy a TV card (preferably one with composite or s-video inputs). Most VCRs have audio out (left and right) and video out sockets, which you would connect the video out to the tv card (standard phono lead normally or phone to s-video lead), and the audio out to the pcās sound card (you may need a 2 phono to 3.5mm jack lead).
Most TV cards will come with basic recording software, but these are usually limited and only produce file suitable for a PC.
To produce DVDs, it is normally best to use a commercial package such as Cyberlinkās Powerproducer which is quite cheap and easy to use and has modest editing capability. This is a good package for beginners but there are many other similar packages ranging from simple to very sophisticated.
Improving sound quality is probably for real experts. By and large, recordings cannot be better than a source recording unless you apply advanced techniques which would normally be very expensive.
The same is also true of video pictures. However, recording to a PC (or stand-alone picture) can apparently eliminate some of the hiss sometimes see in a video recording and give the illusion of an improved picture (actually the recorded picture is usally slightly softer - basically the same technique that make Hollywood stars look younger!).
For hard disk storage the answer is lots (say 160MB or more)! It is a good idea to have a second hard-disk for the recordings as DVD video editing works the disks very hard, and thus keeping it on second disk minimises the risk of a disk failure of you main operating system disk.
Another solution is to buy a stand-alone DVD recorder which you simply connect to the VCR. However, most stand-alone recorders will not copy macrovsion protected video tapes though. The Liteon DVD recorders can be hacked to bypass this (sse liteon forum for more details).
Finally, why bother with protection? It is very expensive and only realistic for commercial enterprises.
If you want to convert VHS to dvd, and it is NOT copy protected stuff, the easiest way is to get a VHS to DVD player (standalone). They work great, and cost around $200.00. If you have anything with copy protection the cheapest solution I would suggest is the Plextor PXM402, the ADS PYRO AV/Link, or the more expensive Canopus AVDC 100. Most cheaper solutions produce very erratic results. One other method is if you have one of the Radeon All In Wonder cards. They work quite well too.
Look into Pinnacle products, they have inexpensive external USB units with software included. 
You may want to try the program with hardware I have been using. It is available from Turtle Beach. Just go to www.turtlebeach.com and scroll to Video Advantage . I purchased the full componant with al the harware and wires needed and it works flawlessly. The difference between the two versions offered is a front mount. The version I own is called VideoAdvantage PCI. The other is called VideoAdvantage ADX. For the extra few dollars buy the PCI version. You wonāt regret it. This device will let you do complete editing of your VHS tapes on your hard drive such as scene delete, re-do titles, you can even record your voice for the introduction if you so desire. You can even take out most of the āgrainy linesā associated with tapes and make your movies clearer by far. There is just too much to tell you about here in so little space. Average cost of the PCI system is $169.00 US dollars and the ADX is about $129.00 US. You may find it on-line somewhere at a discounted price but not by much. This is the best way to convert all of your VHS tapes to DVD. You will get professional results. One more thingā¦this unit got a five star rating by two of the top Computer Magazines in the nation. Best of luckā¦
I have a problem with my recording of vhs to dvd using nero. I can record,but the sound is out of sync with the picture,and the picture has speeded up nothing I do stops it!
I have a problem recording my real vhs tapes to dvd using my philips dvd recorder i put the tape in the vcr and press play and record on the dvd recorder and it says no signal or copr right something or other what should i do to back up my store bought vhs videos?
The answer is likely in the Manual for your phillips dvd burnerā¦
What would i be looking for a setting to turn off the copyright thing or some sort of off switch so i can copy those types of vhs to dvd ?
You need to see if your player supports macrovision bypass. If not, you need to google to see if anyone has hacked firmware for your player. If not, the only way to bypass macrovision is with a hardware solution.
Exactly that is. Philips of course will never give any tips to achieve this.
If you canāt find any hacked firmware, then your only solution is to buy a vcr/dvd player that will bypass macrovision, or buy hardware that will bypass macrovision (ADS PYRO AV/LINK, Canopus ADVC 100, and many othersā¦)
Just my 2sense on this subjectā¦
I use a ATI TV Wonder capture card (like $100 or so) and have a nice sony 4 head VCR with Composite cables hooked up from my VCR output, to the TV Wonder card (the card comes with the HW you need for this.)
for S/W im using the ATI OEM box stuff that came with the cap. card. (youāll have to adjust the ārecording / captureā settings to get a good balance between size/quality.)
and to burn and transcode the captured stuff i use Nerovision Express 3ā¦ itās prob. one of the best AND easiest to use.
if that doesnt explain itā¦well, then go away! 
On the liteon dvd recorder forums, one of the guys came up with an interesting solution to the macrovision problem.
I canāt remember exact setup (you would have search the lieton stand-alone forum) but in essence, he connected his VCR video out to a PCās graphic card video in socket, and then connected his video out socket from the graphics card to the video in socket on his DVD recorder (i.e. looping through the PCās graphics card).
He connected the audio out sockets from the VCR directly to the audio in sockets of the DVD recorder. The graphics card did not pass through the macrovision signals. Essentially the PC acted as a hardware macrovision remover.
Obviously you would need the ability to have simultaneous video in and out on your PC for this to work (if yu have this setup, you would need to test it to see if the card filtered out the macrovision signals).
The real major benefit of this method is that you do not need any fancy software to record/author, and you do not have to mess around with size/quality settings. The downside is that your PC is out of action whilst recording.
The āinventorā of this approach also said he did not get any audio sync issues.
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Done. 30 sec after posting. Nice, isnāt it? 
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