Capturing VHS-C to miniDV?
 

So I've been continuing my project to digitize my grandparent's vhs tapes. I recently bought a JVC HR-3600U. It was a decent price and came with the box. The problem I'm having is capturing the tape. I thought I could use my ZR20 as a passthrough to Final Cut Pro, but when I plug in the firewire, it changes modes out of the VCR capture. I tried capturing onto DV and then into FCP but it's a pain in the A and it doesn't look good. What are my options for a capture device? I'm not willing to buy an old windows machine with an ATI in it. There has to be something of better quality than my camcorder.

Only some DV camcorders/devices let you stream analog->DV directly, I guess this camcorder isn't one of them unless there is some menu option for it you missed?

There are some other options that work on MacOS if not, both DV and some capture cards that can work. Maybe preferably using a panasonic DMR-ES10/15 or similar dvd-recorder for pass-through. There are some other users here that are more experienced with what works with MacoS here than me.

Older post, but not too stale, add a few details...

3600 is older than I'd normally suggest, 3800 and 4800 more ideal. But it's not bad. 3500 is too old, that's bad.

That's a non-TBC VCR. So, at minimum, you'll need to add ES10/15 to it.

DV capture is bad enough, but trying to force a camera to be the converter doesn't always work as claimed. It gets worse when using Mac, not Windows, forced to use editors for capturing, yuck.

An "old Windows" desktop is not needed, there are other paths for Win7/10, and using MiniPCs or laptops. As I've discussed before, some MiniPCs even look Mac-ish! I have a Chuwi Corebox with Win10.