> It's "RF" in that the video and audio are modulated on carrier frequencies before the > combined signal is encoded into pits, and would need to be demodulated in software to > recover the original signals. > > I like this in theory, but in practice it may just be too much trouble. You end up > with a "complete" capture of one particular playback by one particular player of one > particular disc. Is this sufficiently "definitive" to be worth the effort?
If you capture the modulated signal, you eliminate the non-linear FM decoder from the player, so it only depends on the characteristics of the integrator, S/H and filter. Do variations in these components affect the signal in a way that significantly changes the demodulated video?
The ultimate raw dump would of course be inter-pit distances, but the only way to get an unadulterated copy of that would be from the data used to generate the pressing masters.