I did make a lossless clip, I said so in the beginning of the post. However, getting the same frame is rather difficult. As close as they are, they represent the jist of what I'm trying to get across. It'll take awhile for me to upload samples, have to go in to work.

I could probably make them look the same too with 3rd party filters and such. What I'd like/prefer is that they look the same on the VCR in playback and capture.

Here, I'm afraid I went the wrong way though :(
http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/158336
#1: 9600 vs 9800
#2: 9600 vs 9800->9600
#3: 9800->9600, 9800

What this means, is my filtering to make the 9800 look like the 9600, in other words the sharp one is made to look like the soft one. This was done with a sophisticated convolution technique. The brightness difference is an artefact, I\'ll have to look into it.