walter2 - the answer to your question is "yes," sort of. using the VCR -> camcorder (analog-to-DV passthrough) -> hard drive in DV .AVI format is technically a compressed format. the DV .AVI files will be about 13 GB per hour of footage that you capture/transfer to your hard drive. but the quality of the captured files is VERY good (very likely the best you can get at consumer-priced equipment).

i believe most miniDV camcorders now have the analog-to-DV passthrough feature. but to name a few... Sony DCR-TRV350 digital8 camcorder, Sony DCR0TRV22 miniDV camcorder, (i'm sure all of the Sony brand miniDV camcorders that have come out after the TRV22 have this feature).

basically, find a camcorder you're interested in, then try to locate the manual (google for the model number + keywords "manual pdf") and then open up the PDF manual and press CTRL+F and type in "analog pass through" or "captue video" and you can quickly find out if it has this feature.

hope this info is helpful.