russs15 said:

It could be anything from the original VHS, the VHS to DVD recorder process, the low quality setting on this particar version of the transfer, the DVD to AVI conversion process or any combination of the four things.

If the higher quality DVD file looks as bad - blame the VHS or DVD recorder!!! Either way, we are screwed.

Jonno really has his work cut out on this one.........

Hold on, we're definitely not screwed just because of this, on the contrary, this old recording is in much better shape than I thought and it looks fantastic for the most part, and like I just demonstrated much of the lost detail in the highlights can be restored. And I've only seen your compressed avi yet. It's a real gem IMO. :)