The recorder I've used to archive old VHS and S-VHS tapes is a Panasonic DMR-E80 (my lengthy notes about it are here ). I've had it for about two years, so it's far from being a current model. If you are thinking of making more than one DVD copy of any of the VHS tapes or if you are going to try to do some editing and organization of the contents, a recorder with a hard drive will be a huge help. The hard drive is also handy for time shifting TV, which is what we use it for the most these days. As far as I know, the Panasonic recorders won't write to CD-R media, so it wouldn't help with the cassettes and vinyl - on the occasions when I've transferred cassettes to CD, I've done it on a PC.