Welcome.
Canopus DV boxes work passably for some things, but not others. Being disappointed, especially after having been subjected to all their BS marketing, is sadly too typical.
You need the external TBC regardless of what VCR is used -- and regardless of the VCR having an internal TBC. Both correct, but the functions are different.
See also:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...time-base.html
So, knowing that, your question is SR-V10/101 vs HR-S9600/9800/9900. The answer? It depends. These have different strengths and weaknesses. It fully depends on your source tapes. The difference are generally not huge, but can be for some tapes. Neither is better, just slightly different. Overall, yes, the 9600+ series machines are better.
You don't want the 2006 ATI AIW, too many quirks. Anything from the 7200 to the 9800 is fine. The 7000s have VGA, the 9000s have DVI. My favorite is the 9600, but it can also have some quirks, The AGP are better than the PCI, and both are better than the PCIe. But all work great. The differences are minor.
I'm not longer sure that VideoSoap matters that much. If you have time and space, lossless AVI and Avisynth/
VirtualDub will degrain better. It really depends on your wants and needs. I'm thinking that you really want lossless, not MPEG. At least given what I'm reading so far, about "better than DV", etc. MPEG (ATI AIW) is better, yes, but AVI can be better still.
We have many versions of ATI installers available here.
See also:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...der-hacks.html
And I'll be adding some more ISOs when I have time. I've been collecting some for a while now.
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. Available on
eBay for about $20 or less.
Huffyuv really doesn't have any tweaks at all. It just records when it's fed for SD. I think you refer to restoring in Avisynth or
VirtualDub first, then exporting to a Mac. Mac (via Perian) can read
Huffyuv. You can convert it to Prores422 as part of your editing project.
I really like the rarer Asrock board that allow dual/quad-core Intels with AGP. Then you get the best of both worlds. However, those do not appear on
eBay much, and are $100+ (item+shipping) when they do. The same for AGP AMD AM2+/AM3 boards. Another option is the PCI cards with a newer CPU and board that lacks AGP (and you just do not use the PCIe). And, of course, the AGP board with single-core CPUs, and you have many choices there.
Example of AMD quad AGP:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AsRock-AM2NF...UAAOSwMgdXyAMB
Not cheap, but worth it to some of us.
Hopefully that helped clarify some things?