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Codecs/Format to use for a preservation project?

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First my setup -
AMD Athlon 1700 XP (1.4 ghz processor)
512 megs of memory
Windows 2000 Professional (w/SP4)
ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 XT
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

I want to know what I should use for my own star wars laser disc preservation.
I have a Pioneer CLD-M460 LaserDisc/5 CD player
I have the Definitive collection star wars laser discs.

I probably don't have enough money for more different versions, so i'm stuck with just these. Obviously I have ATI's own .VCR format, I have MPEG2 directly (as these are going to eventually be on dvd), also windows media, and finally i'm able to use huffyuv only through virtualdub. What should I use to capture and to edit the movies in? I haven't done a full comprehensive test but I think huffyuv works ok. I only did a test on a capture from the tv tuner, and it had some jerkinss, however it might just be from the conflict between my ati and sound blaster cards. Normal capture through video in (analog) doesn't seem affected by this conflict, but i'll have to check to make sure.

Also I don't have enough money to shell out for a new laser disc player, and this one outputs an image quality where it appears as though each scan line fluctuates in brightness, (producing a shimmering effect going through my tv)... This is not the same as the vhs deterioration problem whereby the top of the tv flashes between dark and bright, but is alot more subtle and over the whole screen. Please give some advice.

I didn't post in the star wars preservation forum yet because i'm just starting out, and these are more general technical issues.

Thanks for any advice
Keith Weatherby II


Keith Weatherby II
Uhfgood -AT- verizon -DOT- net
Uhfgood's Blog:
http://uhfgood.artoo.net
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If huffyuv works, and you have the disk space, then that would be preferable.

Can you post a screenshot of your scanline brightness fluctuation?

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It was kind of hard to get a decent set of pictures that showed it, eventually I had to capture with huffy uv and convert it into an image sequence. I won't circle anything in this image but i backed the contrast down so you could see the individual lines. Top and bottom are taken from a "paused" frame on the laser disc... (That is I paused it and then captured the video feed and then extracted the frames)...

http://uhfgood.artoo.net/artemp.png

The only thing I can say about it is the bands you can see in the two pictures. It was hard to find pictures that looked at all different. If they look the same to you, then I don't know what to say. I realize I probably can't do anything about it, but I decided to post it anyways.

I've also decided to do a straight capture to mpeg 2 for direct copy to dvd, just for watching, and then i'll segment out the movie with some new captures using huffyuv. I don't actually have enough disk space to hold all 3 movies with huffyuv. with the huffyuv segments i'll see if I can store them on some dvd -/+ r's. I'm also considering making them into image sequences, so I can mess with them even if I don't have a codec. (If I do the later, i guess i want to inverse telecine and probably deinterlace and such... I don't really know alot about that though)...

Any help is greatly appreciated thanks!
Keith Weatherby II
Uhfgood -AT- verizon -DOT- net
Uhfgood's Blog:
http://uhfgood.artoo.net
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If you get the problem on a paused frame, then my guess would be the problem is RF interference. Try keeping the video cable away from the power cord and audio cables, or buy a properly shielded cable.

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