Hiya, pretty much the title. I have a dozen tapes I want to backup before age takes its toll. My basic idea after watching some videos online is to buy a hardware based upscaler that can interface with my vcr then throw that signal to a video capture card and record on my computer. I'll go with name brands to avoid problems but is that really the best method? I want to avoid sending them to a service since it will cost more than just buying the hardware in the first place and I got time to kill.
Get a second hand Matrox or BlackMagic DeckLink card, that's basically all you need. You can do the upscaling via software, there are some nice plugins that can do just that.