Aja Kona Lhi best codec
 

What is the best codec to use with vhs and Hi8? Dv50?

Also does the Aja Kona take audio in through the sdi connector?

Lastly, I know head cleaner tapes are not reccomend for VHS but what about hi8 and minidv.

The best way is to capture lossless AVI and encode to h.264, SDI is digital and Hi8 is analog, you need to use S-Video out from the camcorder to S-Video in to the Aja Kona. Cleaning tapes are ok if that's the only way, just make sure they are not too old.