VHS to DVD conversion - what VHS player?

You'll get your best transfer from a decent S-VHS VCR with the Svideo connect. Even though the tapes are not SVHS, they will benefit from the improved hardware, and certainly from the Svideo connect.

Opinions on this differ, but many of us have found no benefit to using "ordinary" SVHS recorders to transfer regular-VHS tapes to DVD. Most of the lower-end SVHS decks made in the last 10 years are as bad or worse than similar standard VHS decks when playing regular VHS tapes. Also, there is still fierce debate whether the SVHS outputs are better or worse than the old-fashioned composite outputs found on every VCR (the signal on the SVHS outputs of most decks is highly variable- better with some tapes, worse with others: you need to experiment).

There is no "midrange" in terms of tape playback hardware: the price of a top-line SVHS or DVHS with built-in image filters and TBC is around $379 for the very few models still available new. Used on eBay is anywhere from $150 to $400 for a good one. Such decks will give you a noticeable upgrade in playback quality, but at a price. If you don't want to spend that much, forget SVHS altogether and look for an older, mid-range VHS circa the 1999 model year (after that all VHS decks became unbearably cheesy with very noisy video playback). The Quasar 960 or its Panasonic 4720 equivalent on eBay, Craigs List or Salvation Army stores commonly sells for $25 or less, they have good mechanics, nice picture and HiFi stereo sound. Don't be tempted by any SVHS deck that does not have the TBC/DNR feature- it will cost more but offer no picture improvement over a plain ole VHS deck for your camcorder tapes.

Anything is possible with software given enough time, money and expertise: others can better advise you there. Personally I do all my VHS transfers direct to a Pioneer DVD recorder with hard drive, edit on the hard drive, then burn to DVD. I have many, many tapes to transfer and find the PC/capture card route much too cumbersome. Your project of 30 half-hour camcorder tapes could go either way: if you don't get too involved with filters the capture card method is feasible. Unless your camcorder tapes are damaged or very poorly photographed, they should transfer nicely without much filtering being necessary: original footage is usually much smoother-looking to begin with.

There are a few JVC VHS-C camcorders on ebay for reasonable prices. You might even find the same model as your broken one, which might minimize some of the problems associated with recording/playback on mismatched brands.

I transferred my old Panasonic VHS-C tapes to my Toshiba DVDR using my Panasonic camcorder, and I'm thrilled with the quality. I chose not to use the adapter as I'm unsure if the VHS adapter mechanism might affect playback quality. Anyone have an opinion on that?

I agree with rickc5, if you could find a working camcorder identical to your original, it could be an excellent option for playback. VHS-C camcorders sell very cheaply now on eBay. Although the C-to-full-size cassette adapters I've used do not seem to cause any harm to the tapes: the VHS-C system was rather ingenious in that regard, I've never seen an adapter that caused the tapes to drag. For ultimate playback the original camera might be a hair better, but I wouldn't sweat it.

Deluxe VCRs to look for on eBay: you can save yourself a lot of headaches by narrowing your search to two recent DVHS models: JVC SR-VD400US and Mitsubishi HS-HD2000U. These were sold new in stores for $700+ between 2003-2006, but almost nobody bothered to use them much after purchase because the DVHS concept never really took off. So most second-hand examples are mint: expect to pay $150-200 for a lightly-used unit. For tape transfer they are about equal and have the same TBC and filter options: buy the one you can get the best price on. A few high-end stores still have these new in stock for $379 but they are a good bet used and sometimes sell at a great discount second-hand. Although honestly, if I were you I'd borrow a working VCR from a friend and do a trial run: your camcorder tapes may transfer just fine without a "filtering" VCR. Hardware and software filters are most helpful with unstable tapes recorded off-air or multi-generation copied tapes or damaged tapes. Nice, clean original VHS-C camcorder footage shot in daylight is about as good a tape source as you can have, it shouldn't really need any enhancement. Run some tests before you spend big bucks unnecessarily.