I have the Russian TV rip, which is the version from Internet Archive. The first episode was very yellow and I couldn’t fully fix that with VLC. It also has a lot of VHS artifacts in the VR scenes, especially on the bus. I found that too distracting, so I’ve been working on upscaling a different lower-resolution copy that doesn’t have these issues. It does look like the other Russian episodes don’t need color correction nearly as much.
I did order a VHS tape of this episode recently, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I think some but not all of the episodes were released on VHS, but maybe I’m wrong about that. The big issue is that they are very hard to find now. I was only able to locate 3 episodes available for sale. Planning to pick up the tape with the other two after my next paycheck comes in.
What I would really like to do is get a copy of all the tapes available, make full 480p scans of them, and then upscale those. Maybe someone who has the VHS tapes would be willing to lend me them for this, or make copies and send them. Any chance that somebody would be you?
The first episode is now on its 3rd pass, which is estimated to take 29 hours by itself. It currently says it has a little over 12 hours left. The preview images look very crisp, but they are also small. More information when I have it.