[old_tv_nut]

Does this smear (left set) show up when the color is all the way off? Hard for me to tell from the photo if its in the luminance, but I'm guessing it is.

If I had to guess without further investigation, I'd suspect the IF alignment around the video carrier. A non-symmectrical Nyquist slope can do this kind of thing. To do some diagnostics, turn the chroma all the way down. If it's still there, see what happens when you change the fine tuning. If it gets wider and narrower as you turn the fine tuning left and right, it may be alignment.

The pic on the right set seems to have a bit of a ghost to the right of objects, which could be a bit of delay line ringing.

Again, these are only guesses without exploring further.