For the past 5/6 years I've used a stand-alone Phillips DVD Recorder with a VCR hooked up to it via gold scart lead, and have decent results. i set my DVDR to standard play/record (approx 2hrs per DVD-5/single layer) as that will generally maintain the quality of VHS and chances are the compatability will be higher wih most players. Never used S-VHS, in fact I'm not sure my VCR is even equipped with it.

The only downsides to this method are the menus are very basic and not very attractive and it's not as user-friendly as a computer when it comes to editing your recordings like cutting out commercial breaks and adding chapter points, and you can't always get a precise frame you want to divide, whereas I imagine with a PC you would.