[pjc50]

This also worked for me. Crucially, the cheap composite capture devices are rubbish and have terrible drivers as well, while the cheap HDMI capture + OBS Just Works.

There is the ultimate solution https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode , but that requires modifying your VCR.

[actionfromafar]

The best solution for "normies" is to get a Panasonic DVD player with HDD recording ability. That thing has a circuit which synchronizes all scanrows, i.e. it completely removes all tearing of the image.

Then proceed with something to digitize the analog output from SCART2.

A couple of models with this feature:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XW_-16Vo4E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaH73rhBHbk

[toomuchtodo]

This was helpful, thanks for sharing. Would you have a specific model recommendation if cost is not a concern and the use case is long term archival?

[actionfromafar]

With these Panasonics, you either get the right model numbers, or. Tearing or no tearing.

The bigger difference is the VCR (you need one of those, too) and the capture device.

The capture device is a whole thing. See for instance Technology Connections on YouTube.

Depending on what you then capture with, you may need to attenuate the video signal with a potentiometer if the image is too bright and washed out.

[djmips]

Thanks, that's a wonderful rabbit hole! When I worked at a video capture card company in the nineties, our competitive advantage was using the raw capture from the same video capture chip that everyone used but bypassing it's decoder and doing that instead with custom assembly coded digital signal decoding. It's cool to see the same general approach that is open and even closer to the analog tape!