Also, are you planning on upgrading the clock in the C2EX or is the on board one good enough? What is the Runco video scaler mentioned? I thought all of those video scalers put out progressive for use on projectors, not interlaced, or did you mod it for a more pure interlaced output?
Regarding the clock i will probably try the 28.125mhz low ppm and jitter ones i can find on a standalone card with its own powersupply. I got enough Ps laying around from old video procs. This clock is pretty important since it decides how precise the D/A conversion (after basic TBC) is and will impact final image quality.
The Runco is a Vfc-4404 from 1999, 20k retail. 25 pounds. Has been extensively modded, did some hard surface mount bypass on the 3D-Y/C card with silver mica caps. Removed fine noise a bit and brought out more warmth and analog feel to the final picture from s-video (monitor out, found it very nice when looking at solid reds and they are more like dvd (thanks to many chips working together to improve chroma bandwidth). It was originally a full scaler yes but the output cards has been removed and motherboard changed to one that is just a doubler with many fewer chips and regulators. Now it only does 5xBnc composite input and 1xS-video output. Will also try a very powerful Proc amp, Elite video Bvp plus for the pre SE sets to see if i can color-correct (JSC especially) and fix it up before input on the DC-30
On the DC30+ i will just have to wait and see, i got a card on the way from Canada. Looking at the hardware it certainly was ahead of its time, Professional design all the way. No wonder it was 1k$ ( Retail with software) back in the day. I most likely wont do audio capture myself since a friend of mine got a full fledged recording studio we will capture some Ac-3 streams from the 97 SE into his pro tools system and see. (via Hercules and a modded Meridian demodulator)
And yes i might try and do some tutorial on the modding im doing and done, i never talked about it before but i have gone pretty far in my quest for better picture. On my Denon LA-3500 (panasonic lx-900 based) i removed the laser glass lens itself and polished it with a special 3M glass polish compond till it looked like a diamond. I thankfully dont have to do it again since the C2ex got an almost new pickup. Putting the unit in total level and on dampened spikes also got the picture a bit better.