Is it the TV or the DVD player? I can't see the movies thru the bright white light!?

My TV is old, this much I know, a Quasar. It has it's own issues, but I'm not sure if this is one of them. The DVD player is a Samsung, it's pretty old too, not as old as the TV though. They are connected thru a VCR and a RF modulator. It goes DVD -> RF Modulator -> VCR -> TV.

So the problem is when I'm trying to watch a DVD with a brightly light scenes, the bright white parts get so bright they bleed out everything else and I can't see. sometimes it's worse than others, it depends on the scene and how much bright white light there is in it.

normally I'd assume it was the TV, but this never happens when just watching TV, but my reception is so bad, I don't know if that could be countering the problem somehow.