I'm going to assume 2 things: 1) you have a decent, yet modest budget and 2) you have a lot of videos and slides built up over the years.

You can do this yourself but it's not going to be cheap for good quality. Remember that today's TV's are large enough to make older VHS look really poor. It wasn't intended for 35" and larger screens, so if you want to watch them back, do it on a smaller screen or on your computer where you can control the size.

I would recommend getting yourself a Plextor or TurtleBeach video converter for under $150 typically. Do NOT get a no-name system... you'll pay for it in quality. Even the higher end ones don't necessarily have the best software. Get good hardware that will do the conversion on the fly and without dropping frames. Make sure your own computer is up to the task. It should probably be in the 3GHz Range and 1GB of RAM (not to mention a boatload of disk space).

Film is an entirely other beast. Those slides are probably just as dear to you and are certainly of much higher quality. Don't even waste your time with a high end flatbed scanner like the Epson with slide trays for $500. Go get a dedicated slide scanner. Nikon makes some good ones. The flatbeds just can't get you the detail or contrast or proper lighting for the scan. They might be useful for print scans, of course. The beauty of it is that if you drop a grand for one of these, you can sell it on eBay after the fact (or even pick up a used one, scan your stuff and sell it used again). Something like this with an automatic feeder might be nice if you have a large collection. http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikon-5000-ED-Slide-...1QQcmdZViewItem

If you go to a professional service, pay well for it. Any place that's not dedicated to it and doesn't have answers for how they treat/store the originals for processing and what liability they carry should something horrible go wrong... just don't bother. Going that route will probably make spending a grand on a scanner of your own seem much more palatable, and with that option, YOU get to control the outcome.

Don't forget to get some decent software for mastering your setup. Adobe Photoshop and Premiere come immediately to mind. Your hardware will likely come with some software, but it may not be up to the task as they are often bundled 3rd rate products that are there just to give consumers something to use.

As stated up the thread, you will want to convert your videos to DVD. You may want to simply store the raw AVI files for later conversion to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray which has more storage capacity. You don't want to mess with VCD which can be burned on CD's. Many players can actually view this format, but it's hardly a standard.

Oh, one other suggestion... if you are going to store these digitally, I recommend you do so on a RAID 5 array for real-time storage (or at least mirrored drives). Many modern motherboard systems have built in RAID (but may not have full RAID 5 or 6). I also fully recommend backing up the files either to tape or to archival DVD and put them somewhere offsite like a safety deposit box.

Best of luck. Let us all know what you decide in this thread!