One thing I noticed yesterday while playing around with my color correcter settings was that there was a definite threshold I could not cross with brightness and contrast because the video noise would become a lot more obvious.
Right now I'm thinking of upgrading my hardware. I have a feeling that the ghosting and the noise have a lot to do with the signal flow from the LD player to the capture card. One thing that annoys the hell out of me is the cheap multi-connector that I have to plug my video cable into. It's not a jack right on the capture card, but a crappy cable with a din connector on one end that splits off into audio, svid, and composite. This pretty much renders my Monster video cable useless, as the video transfer is only as good as the weakest link. I'm also noticing that the video out on my LD player is loose, and loses the signal completely if the jack is moved around. This can't be good either.
So I am now on the lookout for a new capture card and LD player. Of course I would love to use a CLD-97 or CLD-99 or even a CLD-D704 for this project. Funds are pretty tight right now though, so here's hoping I can find a good deal or someone to let me borrow one.
The capture card I have my eye on is the MSI TV@nywhere Master. It's a simple, cheap, high quality card with the same chip as my current card, only it has input jacks directly on the card.