Converting VHS Videos to DVD's

[Ian Tucker]

A friend has purchased a Sony DV camera and has been copying VHS  
footage into the camera and in turn, through to FCP4 on his iMac.    He 
is happy with the results, but is concerned that the amount of work he 
has to do will create undue wear and tear on the transport mechanism of 
his camera.   He does not want to purchase a conversion unit such as 
Canopus as it will become redundant once he has copied his VHS 
collection across to DVD.   His wife works as a teacher and she took 
one of his VHS tapes to school and burnt it to DVD on a DVD recorder 
there.    The resultant disc plays OK on both his home DVD player and 
also on his iMac.   However,  when he attempts to transfer the content 
to FCP4 , or iMovie 4 for editing/cleanup purposes,  the video is OK , 
but there is no sound.

We have tried passing the DVD's  content through DVD Backup and DVD2one 
X,  but only end up with the same files as we started with on the DVD.

Is there any way of getting the DVD's audio into either FCP , or 
iMovie, or does he have to fall back on the slow, laborious task of 
passing his VHS content through his DVD camera ?.

TIA

Ian Tucker