I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm referring to as "RF" in my comment. In the specific case of old consoles (and VCRs and other equiptment, though thi

I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm referring to as "RF" in my comment. In the specific case of old consoles (and VCRs and other equiptment, though this isn't really relevant), there is a built-in or external "RF modulator" which takes the video (composite in this case) & audio signals and modulates them such that they appear as a TV station on channel 3/4 (typically). This is an additional signal conversion from the unmixed and not-modulated-with-a-carrier-frequency signal that is composite + audio, and tends to have additional losses when restoring it to the RGB/YCbCr signal that we actually care about vs going from plain composite to that representation. The "almost RF" you're referring to here is a different end of things, the end dealt with by domesday, etc, which is the analog signal stored to the medium in question (whether tape, laserdisc, or something else). Using that signal is, as I think we agree, a very reasonable choice for constructing reasonable archival copies.