Experience with a Video Capture product

Greetings ladies and gentlemen,

This may be the wrong forum, because it's not concerned with camcorders or technique and such, but...

Anyone have experience using a device/software to capture video from a VCR?

I've surveyed a variety of products that range from $30 to several hundred. Some are motherboard cards. Some are boxes the size of an external HD. Some are cables with a "box" in the middle.

My questions include things like...

Do the devices just create an output file and write it to a drive?
Is it a common form like mpeg or avi?
Do the devices come with their own software?
Is there third-party (maybe even free) sw that can do the job?
What exactly is "the job"? Editing? Chopping into chapters?

My needs are simple. I want to rescue some old home movies before they are lost. However, like most people who peer into something with no knowledge, I don't know what I don't know and there's a pretty good likelihood that I don't really understand what my needs are. I've done a bit of looking, but haven't found a tutorial that gives me the view from 30,000 feet which seems necessary to start nailing down details of execution. Scouring the product descriptions on Newegg is as confusing as it is helpful so that's kind of a wash.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Stu