Good VCR for capturing video.

S-VHS is better than VHS all being equal.
Can you tell us a little more of what you intend to do with the final tape. This will help to better advise.
I'd be thinking to buy a DV camera and use that as a deck. DV is better than S-VHS all things being equal.

Al

VHS is a dead medium, hadn't you noticed? To my mind your best bet would be to buy a bunch of DV tape, rent a svhs deck with a time base corrector and go that route: dub all to dv, edit the dv, burn dvd's.

I'd suggest an S-VHS/DVD combo machine.
Stick in the tape one side a Blank DVD in the other and hit record.

Of course if you wish to edit, add titles, chapter markers etc. then dubbing to DV will be the best route. Set the audio to 16 bit if so.

Al

Just a couple of comments -

S-VHS is going to cost you more $ over a regular VHS deck and even if you can find one it isn't going to do you any good if your tapes were originally recorded in VHS. To get the slight quality improvement of S-VHS you had to use premium S-VHS tape plus record it in S-VHS mode in the first place.

Any good brand VCR with an S-video output (that's not the same thing as S-VHS) and stereo line out will give you as good quality as you could expect from a VHS tape. Sony, JVC, Panasonic all come to mind. Connect it to the inputs of your DAC and you're ready to capture in FCE.

If you're in LA, I've got an excellent SVHS deck I can sell to you. It's a JVC S5902U. I've used it with my FCP system, but now I really don't need it. email me at plurub@gmail.com

I transfer a lot of old VHS and SVHS tapes for customers; I use a Panasonic AG-1980. It's a very solidly built pro-sumer type of machine, with a time base corrector and a heavy duty transport; it will do VHS and SVHS. I run it through my Canopus ADVC300 and on into FCP. It's been able to track and play crinkled and otherwise damaged tapes that other machines wouldn't play. You can find them used (and some still new in the box) on ebay. Expect to pay $600-$800 for a new one, though; it's a good investment if you have a lot of tapes to convert--you could always resell it when you're through.