After browsing over your site, I must say I am amazingly impressed with your work... it shows a level of knowledge and commitment that would seem to far outshadow many others.
I do have a couple of questions:
a) Are you planning on doing all three movies, or just Star Wars
b) Many here have said that you've said that you're never releasing these, but I don't think you've said that have you... you aren't allowed to sell, or screen commercially the results of your efforts, but if a bittorrent happened to get out, perhaps one that was only for those who had already bought the DVD
wouldn't be frowned upon. (Which would rule me out as I refuse to buy them until a proper version of the OT is available for purchase)c) I know that you have very eloquently stated that your intention is to preserve the 'experience' rather than the film as closely as it actually was when released, and I'm in agreeance with you up to a point there... there's those that seem to obsess about it far too much... I mean really, does it really matter if it says Episode IV or not at the begining of the crawl? How does that affect the actual movie... What I'm a little iffy about (don't get me wrong though, I'm very interested in your final version) is the 'fixing' of effects they didn't get right back then, like the speeder smudge under it, or the little jumps due to cuts for effects etc... I'm all for being able to still see those things as it was what was achievable THEN... from a film history point of view, being able to say to someone "See, see how great this film is, how amazing it really does look? And this was all done in 1976!" is surely of major worth for future generations of film buffs and students etc.? With the actual releases that Lucas provides it's a case of "See, see how good that bit... no, that bit there... no, not that bit... wait, ok this bit, and that over there, but not the windows there... all of that, well, minus the CG creature over there... that was done in 1976! Oh, wait... no... no, that was 'fixed up in 1997'"... it doesn't sit well.... Your version, while not having the CG etc (Well, actually it does now doesn't it... really, with the laser flash), does have 'clean ups' of original effects... not to their original versions, but better than original...
I suppose I don't really care, as I do have the best available 'untouched' versions around from prior LD-DVD conversion... and it's certainly watchable... so for me I have the ability to be able to watch them again... but I do wonder if there will ever be a widely available version that will ever be able to be studied by special effects students of the future with the simple point that 'And it was all done in 1976'....