I'm humbled to be in the presence of all you knowledgeable folks, but I have taken a deep breath, registered and am praying for some good advice. I have been trying to find a good machine specifically for copying vhs tapes, (family stuff, not movies) to dvd. I have cable tv, no cable box, and have had tried Pinnacle "Dazzle" with no success (Vista incompatibility???) Bought Magnavox player/recorder from Wal-mart but when I tried to use it without setting up wthrough tv, the tech told me it first had to be initialized through the tv then could be disconnected and used sans-tv. Well...tried to hook up to tv and, guess what, needed modulator or some such thing. (Can you tell I'm not very tech savy?) I really want to just convert VHS to DVD and then use the Roxio on my new Dell to edit. IF I can't do that, I will be satisfied just to get them copied. PLEASE, someone please tell me a good machine to buy and if I will need any other equipment to go with it.

You need to have the Magnavox connected to a TV to be able to select various options and settings and to see what you're doing.

If you have a TV with "composite" inputs (yellow for video and white and red for audio) you may connect the Magnavox outputs to those same TV inputs. (The Magnavox probably came with the yellow, white and red RCA cables.) Then, on the TV remote find the TV/Video button to switch to the Input where the Magnavox is connected. If your TV has but one audio Input use the left (white) input.

Most TVs manufactured in the last twenty years have composite inputs.

The first question is: Do you only want to use it for VHS transfers and never use it to record using a tuner (for OTA or from your cable).

I do VHS transfers all the time. I recommend you not buy a combo deck (DVD/VHS recorder) but use discrete components. That being said I would recommend a Panasonic DVD recorder such as the EZ-17 or the new EZ-18. The EZ-17 is being discontinued so you should be able to get it on clearance. It has a tuner and the picture quality is outstanding. The EZ-18 is the new model, not much has changed but it does not have a tuner. For a tuner you would need to buy the EZ-28. Since your intent is to edit on a PC (good choice) you do not need to pay for a recorder with a hard-disk. Use the money instead to buy a recorder with outstanding picture quality, i.e. the Panasonic.

Plug your VHS recorder into the composite inputs of the Panasonic, start the tape playing and start the Panasonic recording. It's that simple. I always use the SP recording mode (2hr per disk similar to the VHS mode) for VHS transfers no matter what speed I recorded the VHS tape at. The composite inputs of the Panasonic clean up VHS tapes quite a bit and make them look a bit better. Panasonic recorders work best with RAM disks but you will need a RAM compatible drive on your PC to read them. So, I would recommend you use DVD-RW re-writable disks (stay away from any +R format media with a Panasonic). Any good video editing program on the PC will read the video files and away you go. You can do your final edits and menus on the PC and burn your final copies there -- use real good media if you want these to last. I only use Taiyo Yuden available only on-line. It's one of, if not, the best.

Of course you wil need to have any recorder connected to a TV so you can set options and see what you are recording.

If you have a TV with antenna inputs only(I still have one in the basement) most DVDR VHS combo units come with a RF modulator built in.
DigaDo can give more advise on converting tapes, but I think were in agreement that older ES series Panasonic's seem to work the best. The newer EZ series has various issues when trying to copy tapes that Digado has mentioned in other threads.
I have several ES-30's which do a wonderful job converting tapes and like all Panny's w/VHS and tuners it has the RF modulator built in.
You could try searching online to see what's available used or refurbished. The ES-30 is a 3? year old model. I think you might need a combo unit with tuner to get the built in RF modulator, not positive though.
Kelson's idea of separates is also a good idea, but keep in mind if you need the ch3 or 4 output you will need a model w/VHS and possibly tuner.

As mentioned, I most often give advice concerning the outstanding quality provided by various Panasonic models.

As you already have the Magnavox I believe it should do what you need to do with good quality if you use the SP speed (that provides two hour recording capacity on a blank DVD). If this does not provide satisfactory quality I would suggest looking at a Panasonic.

The "external method" of copying videotaped recordings from a VCR to a DVD recorder works well. One does not need a combo recorder to copy videotaped recordings.

Here is one of my earlier posts where I address various aspects of dubbing/copying with Panasonic models:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13252178#post13252178

I agree with what the Panasonic recorders having high quality recordings (it's the best of the four recorders I have or had).

One thing I've noticed with my Pany ES40VS is that when I use a DVD-R to make a recording, it plays back fine on the Pany recorder, my Sylvania recorder, Philips recorder and Philips DVD player, and my Sony DVD players. However, if I play it back on my cheap Jwin player, Memorex player, or my Kawasaki player, the image on a regular basis and interval pauses momentarily (the sound is not affected) and the the image jumps to catch up with the sound. I noticed this same problem with my Sylvania (Funai). However, when I record with my Philips using DVD+R, I don't have this issue.

Sorry for going off the topic.

I'm humbled to be in the presence of all you knowledgeable folks, but I have taken a deep breath, registered and am praying for some good advice. I have been trying to find a good machine specifically for copying vhs tapes, (family stuff, not movies) to dvd. I have cable tv, no cable box, and have had tried Pinnacle "Dazzle" with no success (Vista incompatibility???) Bought Magnavox player/recorder from Wal-mart but when I tried to use it without setting up wthrough tv, the tech told me it first had to be initialized through the tv then could be disconnected and used sans-tv. Well...tried to hook up to tv and, guess what, needed modulator or some such thing. (Can you tell I'm not very tech savy?) I really want to just convert VHS to DVD and then use the Roxio on my new Dell to edit. IF I can't do that, I will be satisfied just to get them copied. PLEASE, someone please tell me a good machine to buy and if I will need any other equipment to go with it.

I use SONY 4-Head Hi-FI low micro heads to Liteon DVD Recorder... I use Verbatim DVD+RW 1x-4x recording at SP. So far everything has come out just like I expected.

I take the VOB file and rename it to myvideo.mpg Where I can use a video editor to edit out clips easy. Like Womble MPEG-VCR does it in real-time just save in a few seconds. Re-burn to DVD and I am straight!