I would see if you can export it as a .tiff format. That should give you just a bunch of individual frame that don't lose any resolution.
It's impossible to have a quick fix for making light saber and have them look good. After Effects will make your job a little easier but I have an FX guy to do that so I can't help you with that program. For the light saber stuff I would use Photoshop because that is what I know.
Take the DVD footage and take out the light saber and the glow up the healing tool and clone stamp.
This should give you a clean plate to work with. (this will be the most work too)
Next add a new layer and put a straight white line on it. (hold shift to make sure it straight) I would suggest for this one shot a brush about 8 pixels. I used 10 px for my last photo and it was too thick.
Now this is where I get different for the tutorials I have read. It's more work but it makes the blade look more natural (IMO) I take that white like and make three more layers of it (duplicate layer).
Next I change the color of three of my white blades to blue (or green/red depending on whose saber you are doing).
I take the one white layer and put a blur more filter on it. This will make it look smoother in the end.
Next take the three blue lines (or green/red) and give them a glassine blur filter. I would start with the number of px used for the original blade and get bigger. Sense we used 8px for the blade the first glassine blur I would use would be 8. Then the next layer down I would use a 16px glassine blur. And finally the third blue layer down I would use a 24px glassine blur.
That step is really where you can play with your image a lot as far as blade glow so get that right. It will take experimenting to get the blue color right and to get the glow right.
OK SAVE NOW BECAUSE IT COULD GET MESSED UP!!!
Take the four light saber layers and make them one layer (Merge visible) but make sure the background plate is still a different layer.
switch the blending mode for this layer to screen and go to blending options. Once here give it an outer glow. Also change the color of the glow to the same color used for the glassine blurred blades.
Play around with these setting until you think it looks right. It varies a lot depending on what scene you are using.
Lastly (I haven't tried this personally) try to play with a grain filter so that each frame will have its own grain. This should give each one an independent look so when played back they will look more natural.
This is how I do it but it may be too much work. I think they look good and more importantly I think you may end up with the effect you are looking for.
Hope it helps.
