Just here to reinforce Lordsmurf's advice. I've learned from him, and others in this forum that this is called tearing. If you do a Basic Search in the forum on "tearing", you'll find plenty of instances of people discussing this.
The cause of this symptom is most likely a deterioration of the signal on the tape, i.e. a timing error. Analog video is very timing sensitive signal, and tearing is one of the symptoms that can be seen as a result of that. Here's a link that might help explain things a bit:
https://www.tgrantphoto.com/sales/in...o-dubbing-tips
As you can find in many forum posts here, Time Base Correctors come in two flavors: Line and Frame. In this case, I believe the error is Line based timing, as it only occurs on the top rows/lines of the frame. A Frame TBC (which are external to the VCR and another chain in the video path to your capture device) is used when one or more frames dropout, in order to preserve a steady video signal to your capture device so it does not lose sync or just plain quit during the transfer. You may also find you have such issues and may also need a frame TBC in addition to a line TBC. It is best when you can have both a line TBC and a frame TBC in your capture path. For newer tapes or those in great condition, you may do well without a Frame TBC. A Line TBC has been, in my experience, the more essential of the two if you had to compromise on not having both. Many would say there is no such compromise. It ultimately depends on what kind of tape issues you encounter.
If you have the means, a VHS player with a built in Line TBC should reduce or eliminate tearing (they do cost hundreds of dollars, and are either a JVC or Panasonic brand). If that JVC model has a TBC in it, then that would also be an option.
The reason a Panasonic ES10 or 15 is recommended is because they are the least expensive alternative and easiest to find these days (there may be a couple other brands also recommended on the forum, but these are the most cited and are very good in this category). Many have both a VCR with builtin Line TBC and a Panasonic ES10 or 15 because they can give different results for different tapes. As has been said here many times, these Panasonic DVD pass-thrus have TBC-like benefits. They are not technically the same as a VCR with a built-in line TBC or an external Frame TBC (such as a DataVideo TBC), but provide
some of the benefits that a TBC provides. One of those benefits is reduction/elimination of tearing. You might even find they help where a frame TBC would help with keeping a video signal healthy enough to continue capturing when one or more frames drops out.
I have personally encountered tearing and the problem was completely resolved using an ES10 as a passthrough. Some posts here have said you should use Line Input 1 on these machines to get the benefits. It also provides the benefit of a cleaner S-Video output signal option (if you have that on your capture card) if you are using the composite input to one of these units. These units also have a benefit of being usable for any analog video format, if you ever find yourself with something other than VHS to transfer.
Best wishes and good luck!