You'd never display fluffy dice on a Porsche... so why even consider connecting a VCR to a spanking new home entertainment system? Oh and I also hear that they've actually stopped making VCRs. So it's clearly time to preserve your collection of VHS videos in a digital format. You could throw money at some guy you've never met to watch you prat around, or you could save both money and embarrassment by investing in an analogue to digital video converter.

As I've rammed down your throat before, there's a few ways to capture analogue video onto your PC, including using the s-video ports on some TV and graphics cards. But for the best possible quality conversion (i.e one that is identical to the source) you'll be looking at purchasing a firewire enabled digital to analogue converter.

The Canopus ADVC-100 does just that and more. Unlike a standalone DVD recorder or USB capture device, the Canopus ADVC range of firewire converters can capture direct to DV AVI. And because it's treated as a firewire video device, you can capture directly to your favoured video editing application - I've tried and tested this with Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 to great effect. The ADVC-100 also works with either PAL or NTSC footage, but the most important aspect of capture is the locked audio support. I've heard frequent tales of people losing audio and video synch after long periods of capture and this problem is solved with the ADVC-100. These options are selected using dip switches at the bottom of the unit, and a button at the front switches between analogue and digital inputs.

The unit is small and certainly won't add any clutter to your desk. The analogue inputs are situated at the front, whilst the analogue outputs are placed at the rear. This is generally the most appropriate positioning as the video outs are generally always connected to the same source, whilst the inputs are switched more frequently to different devices. The ADVC -100 features two DV in and out sockets - one 4 pin on the front, one 6 pin at the back.

As mentioned, the ADVC-100 also works in the opposite direction, enabling analogue output to VCRs and TVs. You can therefore output the video overlay from Premiere to preview on a widescreen TV.

I tend to combine the ADVC-100 with IUvcr and the MainConcept DV codec to great effect. It's been used for both numerous conversions and as a DV bridge - it certainly comes thoroughly recommend for anyone with a stack of VHS videos ready to be converted to digital video for editing or simply preservation.

The full range of canapus converters can be found at http://www.canopus-uk.com/UK/products/Index/product_index.asp