As I was perusing the innerweb I started to see some references regarding video proc amps as a way to get a nicer picture to start out with. My Pioneer DVL-90 Elite is by no means a top of the line player. It's composite connection gives a cleaner picture than the S-Video but I do notice what I believe is gamma noise when I use my Panasonic DMR-EA18 Recorder for transfer.

Is it the machine itself that is causing the "static-like" interference that might benefit from such a device, I'm not sure. I'd like to understand how to figure it out these kind of things.

Would something like the Elite BVP4 be worth acquiring to do an LD transfer with? I don't really know much about proc amps but I would think a basic transfer would benefit from such a device.

Maybe, what I need, is to pair up with someone who is interested and willing to share in this project who has more technical skill than I do. The basic transfer is easy....it's all the script (AVIsynth, Virtualdub) stuff that gets me spooked and makes me hesitant.