Nice to hear that the opening is ok.

Yeah, I can see the unstable color/brightness there, definitely a limitation of the source material.

Another sample: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nea2gy

this one is a short sample from one of the problematic reels with the infamous "Coily" (white dirt) but this time from the UK LD source Jaitea provided. When we now don't get people cut off by the bad cropping the US LD had, I think I can live with it.

I should also mention that I did try to get rid of it with a delogo filter but unfortunately the results weren't good enough, I prefer a clean white speck over a blurry patch in the video. ;)