Paging Sarlacc....

My son's school asked me for some help, they are looking to convert their collection of media which is on DVD and Tapes to digital H.264 MP4. They are using Macs and asked me for suggestions on hardware, software and databases for this. Anyone have recommendations for:

-The hardware (Storage, converters, etc)
-Software (database to categorize, software to rip and compress)

Anything else that would be needed?

 

Use a combo of www.handbrake.fr and vlc player for DVDs

I've used a dazzle dvc 100 on windows for capturing from a vcr/analog video. There's supposedly a way to hack it to get it working on the Mac, but someone else may have a better solution than that.

 

They have some money and are looking for a more pro setup, but not crazy expensive. They want something that will compress but keep the quality as good as possible and more likely an end to end system