[David Paine]

A ten minute capture lets you try lots of experiments without big effort and time penalties. The suggestions in this thread have led to some improvements in VHS-to-DVD conversion quality, but after lots of A-B comparisons, and after learning a bit about video format conversion (and color sampling), I am realizing that there are fundamental barriers imposed by the source material and the technology available to me.

All things considered, I am satisfied with the modest quality improvements that I have obtained.

Thanks to the responders to my original question.