I can take some screen shots, i'll probably do so this weekend. I figured out an easy way to rip out a lot of screen shots in a short amount of time, so there will be stuff to see soon enough.
I'm aware of some of the techniques being used by people, but frankly i'm not convinced. Most of the reason the first versoin came out so good is because I tweaked the video as LITTLE as possible... if you try to sharpen it you might just bring out artifacts that you don't really want to see, and I've already got a good noise reduction method. The reality is, you can't polish a turd, and if you try to you're probably just going to break it up. I'm still split as to whether the noise reduction i did is an "improvement" but what it comes down to is, its necessary. If I just captured the video and compressed to mpeg2 with no processing in between, it would be too hard to compress for even dual layer, and thus it would suffer. The noise reduction I'm doing (which is similiar to what you saw on the last set) allows me to do unheard of things like compressing the video at "only" 3000kbps. Its hard to explain without illustrating the full process, but when I'm done you guys should like it.
The two major "hardware" differences between what I used this time and last time, is that last time I used a Pioneer CLD-59 and a DV camcorder. Since then, I've figured out how to keep the video in sync with a cheap consumer TV capture card (10 bit phillips based asus tv fm). So now i don't need to use the camera, and i got a CLD-97 (TR47 funded that purchase). I know those who talk more often than they actually do something will probably scoff at the fact that I didn't use an HLD-X0 to do the recording, but these are all but impossible to come by and I'd have to question what I'd really gain by using such a player. If it was a perfect world, i'd just pay somebody to break into the Lucasfilm archives, steal me a print, and steal me a telecine machine and I'd be all set. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen, so I have to draw the line somewhere of what is possible and what is unfeasible.