move all his VHS tapes to hard drives and is wondering what the best way is to do it.

Depending on how much video he has that could take up A LOT of space... I would get a digital video camera (I think I've got the Sony PC-5) that has a fire wire connection, play from his existing video camera or VCR into the digital video recorder recording it on digital tape (of course). That way he has a digital copy archived and can do the video editing at his leisure a couple of tapes at a time. I do the kids soccer games and seasonal school skits, edit and distribute video cd's to some of the other parents and occasionally do a DVD+R for others to play in the DVD player. What's nice about the CD vs the DVD although compressed more, is that you can burn each copy in about 30seconds and they're a lot cheaper while a DVD takes forever and costs much more money.

Or, the replaytv is a good method but the video is compressed so I don't think it's as good as having a full uncompressed digital archive.

I guess it really depends on what he's wanting to do with the video, archive, view or distribute?