Sounds like a nice setup Ed. Having the Hi-8 and S-VHS handy will be great if you plan to do any digitizing of material in that format. There is money to be made converting home movies in those formats to DVD. You'll almost certainly want a DVD burner.

I'd recommend shooting video in a digital format such as mini-DV, DV-Cam or DV-Pro. You can then import/export over firewire using the camera or spring for a dedicated deck if that's in your budget. Go Hi Def if you can. Even standard def DV looks so much better than Hi-8 and the footage is digitized internally by the camera.

Having an NTSC monitor on the system lets you preview your production and see how it'll look on a TV. This isn't a must-have if you intend to produce videos only for computer playback, but will avoid unpleasant surprises if you're making DVD's for playback. Colors are represented differently on TV and some area is lost around the edges.

There's a lot of variables and ways to go, depending on your budget and what you intend to produce video for.


--k0