the Pioneer DVD-440H DVD recorder looks like a good choice,(also as passthrough) because of it's component video output (the red green blue RCA connection) although the output from an other VCR to this recorder would be s-video or composite.(only for one type of tv-system? PAL/NTSC)
The component video out could go to an TBC or capture device that has component video inputs.
If recording to HDD or DVD, would mean you get MPEG2 files, from DVD is no problem, does the HDD drive of the unit use a normal disc/file format ? (FAT32, etc..?)

Pretty much all DVD-Recorders have component out, the main reason I brought up this model is that it can accept PAL60 so it can be used for NTSC stuff on pal VCRs. Unlike the Panasonic DMR-ES10 which is often mentioned here it is switchable between NTSC and PAL/SECAM. Don't think it's as good as fixing timing errors as the Panasonic though. I mostly use it as a TBC when recording Video8/Hi8, though I've used it for a handful of NTSC tapes, both Video8 and VHS. It's not quite as strong as proper TBC like my Datavideo TBC-3000, but with Video8 that's very rarely needed.

You could put a TBC behind it in the chain, though the only purpose of that would be if you were to need to strip macrovision, as the recorder already rewrites the signal. DVD-Recorders (or at least the ones I've tested) tend to send out a video signal with macrovision copy protection if they detect it on the signal passed into them. Some capture cards can get confused by them. Later recorders with HDMI outputs do something similar when detecting macrovision. They make the HDMI signal copy protected which prevents say a blackmagic card from capturing it without a HDMI-splitter or other device that can strip the HDCP copy protection.

I have no idea about the file system on the HDD (though I doubt it's easibly readable), or the recording quality as I've only used it for pass-through to a capture card. Recording to HDD is done using mpeg2, though it can record with a higher bitrate than what is allowed on a DVD. I've read about recovering files from other recorders by reading the raw hard drive data looking for mpeg2 headers. From what I've read here on the forums, for recording directly to DVDs, LSI-based recorders is what's recommended, as they LSI chipset is very good at capturing detail. They are not as good at dealing with crappy signals though.

I've normally left luma noise reduction off, chroma noise reduction on half, and 3D Y/C at default when using it for capturing a VHS. I've reduced the white level and upped the black level slightly to avoid clipping but I don't remember the exact setting.

As mentioned I have only used it as pass-through doing lossless capture on a computer, so I don't know how well it works for recording directly to DVDs.

Thank you hodgey!

I have a PAL VCR that can read NTSC tapes and display them in PAL60. I also use a Pinnacle 710 USB device and VirtualDub. The NTSC_433 or PAL_M options in VirtualDub did not work at all. I just got a black and white still picture whenever I tried to capture directly from the VCR. Obviously, the Pinnacle device was unable to process this PAL60 signal.

Therefore, I followed your suggestion and bought a Pioneer DVR-545X-S (for only 30 euros) and it worked like a charm! I just needed to set the correct options for it to output proper NTSC signal and when I selected NTSC_M in VirtualDub, the signal was correctly recognised and captured.

So to whoever wishes to capture NTSC signal with a VCR that can only output PAL 60 signal: I confirm that this trick works perfectly.

Thanks again!