My PC is an AMD 1900 XP (1.6Ghz) with 512 Megs of SD2700 DDR RAM. I have two 80 Gb hard drives and one 20 Gb one. I also have a Canopus ADVC-100 DV bridge which was about $270.00. You can actually achieve the same results with the Canopus ADVC-50 or ADVC-1394. Those two are PC cards that you install. The 1394 has its own Firewire, but the other 50 and 100 require a Firewire card or some other device with a Firewire connection. I only went for the more expensive 100 because it can do Analog to Digital and back. I thought that would come in handy if I needed to make a tape for someone who doesn't own a DVD Player.
My LD Player is the Pioneer CLD-D703 which I think was one of the best non Elite Pioneer players. The 704 was better, but the only difference was that it had an AC-3 output connector. The 703 can easily be modified for that, but I didn't bother since the Definitive Collection LD's are not AC-3.
The software I used was WinDV (capture), Virtual Dub(editor), TMPNGEnc Plus (encoder), and DVD-Lab (author).
Sorry if this is off topic. I feel this is legal because I'm suggesting what I used to make my own DVD's so others can have an idea of what they need to buy in order to back up their VHS or LD copies. Others may have different preferences as to equipment and software they feel is better. I'm curious as to what others used to do their's because I'm always looking for ways to improve.
Patrick