My general Digitizing VHS tapes advise is:

Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC5Zr3NC2PY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQioCb4KUHM

Look into:

https://legacybox.com/products/vhs-conversion

https://lotusmedia.us/convert-tapes/

https://www.memoriesrenewed.com/video-transfer-services/

and only if you have a shitload of personal VHS tapes should you get a TV tuner card and try to convert.

let me know if they actually end up having full capacity, because slow drives I can deal with. That price per TB is close enough to spinning metal to finally tip the scale for me towards SSDs

That is just the gateway drug to bootstrapping.

Check out https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

if you want the real hard stuff.