capturing footage from my mini dv tapes

There are loads of footage i have on miniDV tapes and firstly i want to capture them to some format (as a backup plan) and then take my time in creating dvds out of them!

I am on an iMac corei7 and my questions are:

1. In what type of format do you think i should store them to (i want this footage to be stored in the best quality available that can be derived from those mini dv tapes) so later i can use it at some dvd or blue-ray creating software!

2. Which mac application would you recommend to use for the capturing! Im not gonna be doing anything special at the moment so i need something that will capture to a format as uncompressed and as easy as possible!

Thanx in advance for the help!