Morten Kalland,
I never seemed to get anything useful out of VHS capture hardware until I tried playing back tapes in the original camcorder and feeding the signal into a DVD recorder. The files on the recorded disk seemed of much better quality than the original VHS and SVHS recordings.
I tried using a similar method with some copyrighted tapes (allegedly) and confirmed their anti-piracy still worked quite well. Good job the images played back from the commercially-produced VHS were so incredibly bad as to discourage further effort.
In the past, when desperate, I have pointed my camera (in a darkened room) and recorded pictures direct from a tv, whilst using an audio cable to record rhe sound. Not a method for purists, but it got me what I needed.
If you, however, have no means of playing back your precious VHS, then I fear you are trying to re-incarnate rather than re-encode.
Good Luck with that one...
Applause is easy to get. Ask yourself if you worked enough for it to be an honourable exchange of gifts.