Hi Bob. Originally I was trying to record directly to DVD, using a HDD/DVD recorder, and the screenshot was from that attempt.

I also tried going to PC/Vegas capture via the ADVC-300 which has some kind of TBC built in, and the signal looked even worse, in fact it sort of froze even though the tape was still playing..

I am currently trying a record to DVD, messy frame and all, then I'll see how it looks with cropping to cut out the bad bit. I'm not too optimistic, but it may be the best I can manage.

Take a very close look at the edges of the tape with a magnifying glass and see if one of the edges is slightly folded over. This is one of the problems that can cause what you see. Sometimes it is very difficult to see as the fold may be 1/16" or less.
JJK

The thing that has me baffled is it looking OK coming out the RF modulator. If that wasn't the case then there'd be many things to check.
As said a creased tape or a tracking error.
The other thing that's trapped me is many of the VCRs in PAL land that playout NTSC shift the chroma sub carrier so a PAL TV will lock to it and playout 60i. The problem this creates is real NTSC gear will not lock to the sub carrier. Some of my gear has two forms of NTSC on its switches, on for real NSTC and one for PAL compatible NTSC.

The other unlikely possibility is Macrovision but I'm certain Peter would have thought of that if the tape contained a commercial movie.

If all else fails and to answer the original question. You should be able to take the RF out from the VCR into the RF in of another and from the A/V out of that VCR get the demodulated signal out again. That'll not help the image quality of course but better than lossing 30% of the frame.

Bob.

Bob, I'm trying your suggestion, but I don't know how to "tune" the second vcr to receive the RF out from the first - it's got 2 AV in channels, and all the other program channels are set to broadcast frequencies.

Saturday morning: I thought about it overnight, and tried retuning the second VCR to receive the RF out from the first VCR - I did get a sort of image, but it was so noisy it wasn't worth it, and it also had the same bar at the bottom. So it seems that the same RF out signal can look fine when "decoded" by an old TV, but have the same problem when connected to another machine.

Anyway, not being one to give up easily, I have now got a surprisingly acceptable DVD result by doing the following steps:

1. Record straight from VHS to DVD, including the frame problem.
2. In Vegas Import/DVD Camcorder Disc and dragging to Timeline,
3. Right click each event / Properties/ Change aspect ratio to NTSC DV 0.9091
4. Pan Crop to cut out problem area.
5. Render to DVD

I spoke to the client this morning - the first tape, showing the client's husband base jumping from a mountain in South America, was in fact PAL, so that's why there was no problem there.

"the first tape, showing the client's husband base jumping from a mountain in South America, was in fact PAL"

Now where getting somewhere.
Not meaning to insult your intelligence but you did flick the PAL/NTSC switch on the ADV300?

If you can trust Aus Post you can send it over to me. I've captured a few NTSC VHS tapes without issue. I suspect the VCR is doing something silly like sending out NTSC 4.43.
We've now got a very rare VCR, one that'll play PAL, PAL-M, NTSC and SECAM. Someone was throwing the unit out and my mate caught it.

Bob.