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Info: The preservation of technical flaws re the X0 project (aka Boris is DanielB)

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 (Edited)

I still contend that I was posting on topic in the original thread; as I was expressly about the X0 preservation.

Originally posted by: Laserman
If I didn’t see the glitches at normal playback speed, I wouldn’t fix them - I’m not bothering to fix any glitches I don’t see in normal playback.

 

What I mean, is that it wasn’t ever intended for customers to go through and fix the glitches frame by frame. In actual fact, it was never intended that customers fix them at all - but I chose to put it this way since this is the way in which you’re going about it. Of course you can see the problems at normal speed, as can I. I put it to you, though, that film colourization in essence was the process of making the movie appeal more to today’s audience; and that in essence cleaning the mattes and other technical flaws is also the process of making the movie appeal more to today’s audience. You may not feel it’s the same thing - the way Lucas may not feel that the Special Editions are the same either.

To put it simply, today’s audience is spoiled by newer movies with more advanced effects, using the latest technology. And the average cost of producing a Hollywood movie today is much much more than it was in 1977. But in 1977 viewers had never seen the effects we now have today, and so seeing problems like matte-lines were second-nature. Today though it would be considered below par if a film was made which had obvious black matte lines. Therefore it is now second-nature to think of older films which have these defects in them as being “below par”. I wonder if anyone will ever really be happy, if all they ever think about is this is how it was meant to be; and I wonder if the movie was really was “how it was meant to be” the first time, would it have been as grand a masterpiece as it is?

Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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About 3 months ago I mentioned to Zion that you and DanielB might be the same person, but at the time we thought I was just being paranoid. You have posted from the same ISP (NetSpeed) as one of his socks "Star Wars Kidd" - which appears to be an Australian ISP even though you claim to be in New Zealand.

Boris - are you DanielB?

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Is the Pope Catholic?

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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Personally, I like the technical glitches. I think it's a testament to what people were able to achieve back in the day, and it can be a lesson in how they created those effects. I also like fan edits that like to improve on the old effects to make them "seamless" with the rest of the action.

Why can't we have both? The X0 project will do this. We will have the direct caps and the "restored version".

Unlike GL, we don't have a choice.

Case closed.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Originally posted by: Moth3r
You have posted from the same ISP (NetSpeed) I have posted from Netspeed? ... wow, you're right. And it's not their public proxy either (unless their proxy number is dynamic)... weird I can't explain that. I'm not DanielB though.
as one of his socks "Star Wars Kidd" Out of curiosity - what was his original ISP, was it Netspeed? I'll bet it was, lol. I have a hard time following past forum history, I can see he re-registered after being banned, but I don't know how many times or what usernames he used.
Originally posted by: Star Wars Kidd
I said I'd help before... before well, you know... how about I save up my paypal account and buy a set off ebay after X-Mas, then you can borrow them capture and I'll re-sell them!

- all I ask in return is my name in the DVD credits "the XØ team appreciates the help of DanielB" or something like that! LOL... I take it he's not the anonymous 4th member of your preservation team, X0? I guess you must have deleted most of the 6 posts he made under that username, Moth3r.Originally posted by: DanielB
That's probably for the best mate, as I said earlier you are the one who has to decide your course of action, people just trying to change your mind - I know is confusing and frustrating. I myself hope you take the project back up, and as I said I am willing to help out in it with funding. If I manage to get a faster PC (than this old 750mhz thing) then i'd be willing to take a copy of the source cap and painstakingly create a watchable DVD from it too.
You're confusing me with the guy that said THAT in the X0 thread? It's funny, I'm sure he was probably being sarcastic or something... but the meaning is lost on me reading into the past. Did he say the same thing I said? That the DVD>=X0 transfer quality? there's so much editing that he's done, I can see he removed entire posts and replaced them with flowers.

Anyway, what was this thread about?... or wait, did he tell you not to take the matte-boxes out? I can't see him saying that, or that DVD>=X0 quality... I can see he rambled on about converting Laserman's X0 player into a PAL machine (though it doesn't look like he started the discussion on that just continued it). It makes me think now, if the X0 is the greatest laserdisc player, ever, how come it could only play NTSC? I mean there are players that play both pal and ntsc and automatically flip sides too! Anyway, I'm sure the Japanese had no use for PAL or something.

So on the topic of technical flaws:Originally posted by: Mavimaoq
Why can't we have both?
I don't care if you do have both. It's like the special edition - there are things about it that I actually like; I just don't like it when Lucas tries to pass it off as being the original trilogy. Likewise, I don't care if the X0 team wants to have their own "X0 edition"... I just don't think they should try to pass it off as being the OUT. And I know they're not trying to - but other forum members I think are.which appears to be an Australian ISP even though you claim to be in New Zealand.
PS: don't call me Australian! Nah you're right, it does appear to be an Australian ISP. They must resell or something... though why they'd resell from an Australian data centre confuses me, I wonder if other ISP's do it? Surely not.
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Originally posted by: borisI don't care if you do have both. It's like the special edition - there are things about it that I actually like; I just don't like it when Lucas tries to pass it off as being the original trilogy. Likewise, I don't care if the X0 team wants to have their own "X0 edition"... I just don't think they should try to pass it off as being the OUT. And I know they're not trying to - but other forum members I think are.


If that's how you feel that's fine. I think you should have just worded it differently. Instead of going "This is wrong! No no no!" you should have been a little more indirect and said, "Would it be right of us to call the X0 project the OUT since we seem to be TOUCHING it up instead of leaving it UNTOUCHED!"

But then again, you have to remember that the X0 project is going to have several releases. There is not going to be one single release. If you'd read that you would know.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Originally posted by: boris

Anyway, what was this thread about?... or wait, did he tell you not to take the matte-boxes out? I can't see him saying that, or that DVD>=X0 quality... I can see he rambled on about converting Laserman's X0 player into a PAL machine (though it doesn't look like he started the discussion on that just continued it). It makes me think now, if the X0 is the greatest laserdisc player, ever, how come it could only play NTSC? I mean there are players that play both pal and ntsc and automatically flip sides too! Anyway, I'm sure the Japanese had no use for PAL or something.


Boris....

I see you looked through the thread, but if you'd paid attention, you would see that the X0 LD player's circuitry is dedicated solely to NTSC.

Read this http://www.x0project.com/articles.php?i=00001

If you read it, it would tell you that

- "Built by Pioneer solely for the Japanese domestic market": that means it's solely in NTSC.

"the Pioneer HLD-XØ (that's X zero) cost a fortune and was designed to do exactly one thing: play NTSC laserdiscs like no other player before or since." Maybe that will tell you something... I don't know.

-"The XØ has 37 low-impedance active power regulators strewn throughout its innards, so the image is remarkably free from noise of any kind, and it has five (yes, five!) NTSC decoders in parallel to average out any errors in the signal stream." I don't know if you understand that part, but what it's basically saying is that the machine was built using the best parts to give a superior NTSC signal. I'm sure it would have been feasible to do PAl as well, but I'm sure that 7000 dollars is expensive enough for an LD player.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Originally posted by: boris
I still contend that I was posting on topic in the original thread; as I was expressly about the X0 preservation.
Originally posted by: Laserman
If I didn't see the glitches at normal playback speed, I wouldn't fix them - I'm not bothering to fix any glitches I don't see in normal playback.
What I mean, is that it wasn't ever intended for customers to go through and fix the glitches frame by frame. In actual fact, it was never intended that customers fix them at all - but I chose to put it this way since this is the way in which you're going about it. Of course you can see the problems at normal speed, as can I. I put it to you, though, that film colourization in essence was the process of making the movie appeal more to today's audience; and that in essence cleaning the mattes and other technical flaws is also the process of making the movie appeal more to today's audience. You may not feel it's the same thing - the way Lucas may not feel that the Special Editions are the same either.

To put it simply, today's audience is spoiled by newer movies with more advanced effects, using the latest technology. And the average cost of producing a Hollywood movie today is much much more than it was in 1977. But in 1977 viewers had never seen the effects we now have today, and so seeing problems like matte-lines were second-nature. Today though it would be considered below par if a film was made which had obvious black matte lines. Therefore it is now second-nature to think of older films which have these defects in them as being "below par". I wonder if anyone will ever really be happy, if all they ever think about is "this is how it was meant to be"; and I wonder if the movie was really was "how it was meant to be" the first time, would it have been as grand a masterpiece as it is?


It isn't about making it acceptable to today's audience like colourisation. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet that colourisation is the same as removing a garbage matte.
It also isn't about making a movie "as it was meant to be" if they had unlimited technology. It is about taking the movie that was actually made and fixing some errors - and even that only *after* a straight untouched preservation is completed.

The problems I see in the film are the same ones that were noticed by people when the film was released. As I said before my personal version is about removing problems that jar *me* out of the viewing experience. They jarred me out of the film in 77 and they still do today. It is not about changing the film to suit a different taste, a different audience or updating to a particular fashion (like crushing the blacks on the SEs to make it look like a current film, or colourising a film to suit a new audience not used to watching B&W)

Also, one point seems to be repeatedly missed, the difference between a preservation, a restoration, a personal restoration and a fan edit.

Backing up the laserdisc is a preservation effort, which we have done and completed. As far as the DC version of the discs go, it has now been madde somewhat obselete by the release of the GOUT, although it didn't preserve the opening crawl from the laserdisc version. Backing up the SC of ANH is also done. This is still very relevant as it is the only consumer copy of the OUT with no DVNR screwing up whole scenes in the film.
So to repeat, those archives are *done* so no-one needs to stress about it. The first aim of the X0 project was successfully completed.

As presevation goes though, if you stop at that point, you have only preserved the laserdisc, not the experience of seeing the film, or in effect the film itself.

What I mean by that is the laserdisc has artifacts that were not in the film, or at least not in a good first run print of the film, it has the DVNR, has lots of dust and scratches, droputs and film damage that is not going to be on the negs or a first run print.
It also has considerably different colour. The garbage mattes are much less visible on the film prints also, and there are a lot of subtle differences between the LD versions and the theatrical prints.

By then going beyond a straight LD archive and undertaking a 'restoration' effort, you can take the various source footage available, and match it back to a theatrical print.
In effect bringing the laserdisc versions much closer to the film itself - undoing some of the problems created in the transfer to laserdisc in the first place.

People might think cleaning up the film damage is somehow 'not original' but every film print struck will have differences.
When restoring old paintings in Museums sometimes new paint has to be added to get it back to as close to original as possible - a pure restoration project is a similar process.
Adjusting the colours to a known print, and removing film damage is just getting it back as close as possible to original.
This process is regularly undertaken when archiving films for the AFI etc.

Then you get into the area of a personal restoration effort.
If the original is archived, then you are not taking anything away by doing a personal restoration.
I consider a personal restoration effort that includes fixing matte lines, garbage mattes and other glitches to still be a restoration, albeit one of a slighlty different type.
Fixing items that are purely post production errors or glitches differs from a reworking like the SE in one major area.

For a 'personal restoration' The 1977 theatrically released film becomes the script for your project. You are not changing any dialogue, any character interaction, any creative decisions, removing or adding any scenes. You are not adding characters, changing music or sound, or altering the mood through colour correction.
Colourisation however is akin to an SE style change as B&W shooting requires you to make particular choices about how the movie will look, and to colour them arbitrarily later totally changes the movie.)
In short for a preservation the film's story, pacing, characterisation, length etc. etc. remains unchanged,( mess with any of that stuff and you have a fan edit).
For your preservation you are taking the finished product and purely fixing errors. This is different from trying to 'guess their intentions' about a scene. It is easy to know what is a glitch and what isn't. Trying to guess how they *might* have shot a scene, or what they *might* have added to a scene if the tech was available is a totally different thing.

The limitations of the technology made the film be shot in a particular way, certain camera angles used and so on.
A personal preservation effort doesn't try to change any of those things as they make up the way the movie was shot, and no one can say how the movie would have been different if those limitations were not there.
It keeps the film locked into the way it was shot, but removes any technical errors.

One way cleans up glitches out of a movie but leaves the movie itself unchanged, the other changes the story and it becomes an entirely different movie.

Then of course you get into the grey area of fixing other types of errors, like continuity problems (like the disappearing/re-appearing cloak in Kenobi's house), like the R2-D2 being blue when seen behind Luke, but black in the next scene, the jump cuts for some of the lightsabre on/off scenes and so on.
I still think this belongs more in the restoration camp than in a fan-edit category as once again you are not changing any part of the story, characters etc. You are changing it from the original in that you are removing or colouring elements within a particular scene, and you have to really do your research to ensure that you are not changing something that was meant not be there (for example researching to find out that R2 was only black because of the bluescreen, that he wasn't black because he was 'in space'. That the green blobs are unwanted garbage mattes, not 'shields' on the ships).
People's opinions will always differ on this sort of stuff, but the idea is to be as careful as you can, and if you can't be *sure* then to leave it how it is.
Then you end up with the same movie, but distraction free.

A project definately moves out of the realm of a preservation effort once you start 'editing' the film. Cutting or adding different scenes, or changing the grade to change the mood (like making the tantative very cold and blue), putting in new characters and so on really becomes a re-edit, or a different cut of the movie, and belongs in the realm of a fan edit.


All of this is semantics anyway, people will always have different ideas of how to categorise something, (and could argue it forever) but to say fixing a garbage matte is the same as colourising a movie, or the same as doing a total re-edit like the SEs is beyond stretching an analogy.

I will state again to make sure there is no confusion.

1. The X0 project was about archiving the footage first (done) and then creating our own preservations second (in progress).
2. The laserdiscs are not exactly what you saw at the cinema.
3. Different prints abounded even in the 70s so there is no single, definitive ANH as such, but they all were essentially the same and nothing like the SEs.
4. Our preservations are being matched to a set of theatrical prints to get as close to the 1977 cinematic release as possible.
5. The GOUT and the DE LDs are a long way from the theatrical prints I have seen both in colour and of course the massive loss of detail and artifacts caused by the DVNR process. The SCs are much closer to the prints.

Arguing what category a particular effort falls is somewhat pointless as anyone can call them what they like, and belongs in threads like this rather than clogging up project threads with endless arguments.

I don't think I (or the X0 guys) have ever tried to muddy the water as to what we are actually doing though.
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Quick question.
If you don't agree with people going through a film and creating a fan edit or fixing glitches etc. what is your interest in visiting the "fan edits" forums?

I don't mean you shouldn't be here or anything, I just what you visit these forums for personally?
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Why bothering explaining yourself, its for your own personal gratification and for the fans that would appreciate it and there’s no shortage of people who feel what you are doing is great and would be doing the same thing if they had the knowledge and know how. Let the complainers complain, I cant say from specific film experience but altering something and tweaking it to your liking is a pretty cool feeling and its going to be cool as anything for you to sit back and watch this when its all done and think I made this what it is, and thats awesome. And most everyone on here engaged in edits are IMO doing a helluva lot better than Lucas/LucasFilm have done with the movies in the past 29 years.

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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Why even bother explaining yourself Laserman? The guy's a fanatic.

Edit: I aint talking about Laserman

“I love Darth Editous and I’m not ashamed to admit it.” ~ADigitalMan

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Im not saying why bother editing...

...still not getting the point

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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Originally posted by: Mavimao
I see you looked through the thread, but if you'd paid attention, you would see that the X0 LD player's circuitry is dedicated solely to NTSC. Yea I know, it just amazes me they limited such a good player to ntsc only.
Instead of going "This is wrong! No no no!"
Well I don't remember saying it like that - besides which I already explained that I know the X0 is doing it both ways, I just fail to understand how people can think it should be the "touched up" version with no untouched version.They must resell or something...
BTW I called my ISP and they confirmed they don't resell from offshore. I was given two conflicting stories - I think netspeed handles the customer accounts but are supposed to use a different IP.
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Time
Originally posted by: boris
Originally posted by: Mavimao
I see you looked through the thread, but if you'd paid attention, you would see that the X0 LD player's circuitry is dedicated solely to NTSC.
Yea I know, it just amazes me they limited such a good player to ntsc only.
Most of the good-to-great LD players are NTSC, due to the huge acceptance of the LD format in Japan, and the moderate success of LDs in North America.

I've heard (from people who know more about LD players than I do) that even the best PAL LD players were mediocre, at best, when compared to just mid-level NTSC players.

Pioneer made the best players, and being a Japanese company, I guess they just didn't put much effort into PAL players.



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That is pretty much the case, laserdisc never really took off in the PAL territories, so releasing a killer and expensive player didn't make sense.
There was no reason for an NTSC owner to really want PAL capability back then either, their TVs wouldn't cope with it and there were very very very few titles that got a true PAL release anyway.
Making the X0 player do PAL would have cost a fortune in engineering, and had no real market. It just didn't make financial sense.

BTW I was reading that Lucas interview just now and saw this:

GL: These films are incredibly difficult to make. Normally, a director is concerned mainly with character and with telling a story. In the Star Wars films that is important, but equally important are all the details. They’re like little time bombs all over the set, thousands of them, and if you don't catch one it could do you in. When the shot moves around and there's some little thing that isn't right, it could take the audience completely out of the movie. In a normal film there isn't that thin edge. Reality, the reality of the world we know, is a tangible presence in most films. The viewer is there, it's real. But in a film like this, where we're creating a world that doesn't exist, it's very easy to puncture a viewer’s sense of reality by a missing or wrong detail.


Pretty much sums up why a glitch free preservation is important to me.

Thanks for the comments Ghostalpha, it isn't really a case of justifying myself, just letting people know what makes me tick.
The other unmentioned result I wanted from the X0 project was to inspire other people to have a go, and share some techniques. People that play with this sort of thing may end up getting interested as a career option or at the least learn some stuff and then contribute back into the community again.
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I could have sworn Pioneer had at least one PAL/NSTC model at some point? It drives me nuts when I find a obscure/rare title I'm looking for and it was only released on a PAL disc.
Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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There are plenty of combo PAL/NTSC models (CLD-2950, CLD-925, V4300-D where the best ones) but they couldn't hold a candle to the top teir NTSC players in signal quality unfortunately.
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First off a whole bunch of replies were written when I was writing mine, which I haven't seen until now...

Laserman:
It is about taking the movie that was actually made and fixing some errors - and even that only *after* a straight untouched preservation is completed.

I understand, I just feel that a lot of members here are now seeing the retouched version as being of more value than the un-retouched preservation.

Laserman:
As far as the DC version of the discs go, it has now been madde somewhat obselete by the release of the GOUT, although it didn't preserve the opening crawl from the laserdisc version.

No, it was better. But I can understand if you want the ANH crawl in there... after all we've all gotten used to it for so long.

Laserman:
As presevation goes though, if you stop at that point, you have only preserved the laserdisc, not the experience of seeing the film, or in effect the film itself.

You seem to be agreeing with me; unless you're trying to create a greater experience?

Laserman:
What I mean by that is the laserdisc has artifacts that were not in the film, or at least not in a good first run print of the film, it has the DVNR, has lots of dust and scratches, droputs and film damage that is not going to be on the negs or a first run print.

People might think cleaning up the film damage is somehow 'not original' but every film print struck will have differences.


True, but that's not the same as special effects compositing. Most of Lucas' changes (and lets face it, only a couple like Greedo firing his gun actually make a difference to the story) are just trying to upgrade the effects in the movies. In actual fact, it may well have been more exciting in cinemas to have Greedo and Han have their shootout ... but that's not what was done in 1977. You could just as easily take the Special Edition - and keep 90% of the new effects (and possibly more) without modifying the story, if you so wanted. I'm just making a point, I'm not defending the SE ...

Laserman:
Quick question.
If you don't agree with people going through a film and creating a fan edit or fixing glitches etc. what is your interest in visiting the "fan edits" forums?


Well they don't call it restoration for a start, they call it a fan edit. Let's get one thing straight - I don't care what you do with your edit ... I just don't understand why people think your edit is closer to the OUT than the OUT. We seem to be talking about different things.

Laserman
There was no reason for an NTSC owner to really want PAL capability back then either, their TVs wouldn't cope with it and there were very very very few titles that got a true PAL release anyway.

However, the Star Wars Trilogy was one of those very very very few titles that got a true PAL release, ironic isn't it?

Anyway, I'm not attacking the X0 project. How many different LD releases did you use for it again?
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Time
Originally posted by: borisI understand, I just feel that a lot of members here are now seeing the retouched version as being of more value than the un-retouched preservation.

So what if we are? LMAO Guess what Boris, no one needs your approval..you seem to think you're some sort of moral police, making sure we all have the correct thoughts about the OUT, GOUT, X0 and whatever else you deem important...

Trying to impose your sense of ethics on people in an open forum is wrong and pathetic. Grow up Boris, and get a life.


I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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Originally posted by: Laserman
Quick question.
If you don't agree with people going through a film and creating a fan edit or fixing glitches etc. what is your interest in visiting the "fan edits" forums?

I don't mean you shouldn't be here or anything, I just wonder what you visit these forums for personally?


Any real answer?
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Boris Wrote Let's get one thing straight - I don't care what you do with your edit ... I just don't understand why people think your edit is closer to the OUT than the OUT. We seem to be talking about different things.


You type a lot for someone who doesn't care

For some people the X0 project may be closer to the OUT they saw in cinemas than the GOUT is.

The GOUT is not the cinematic release. It is the home laserdisc version's master tape.
As said before the GOUT's colour is off compared to the film prints, it has DVNR artefacts that were not in the film prints causing a huge loss in detail, and a real distraction in quite a few scenes.
So...
1) A version matched back to film colours and removing those DVNR problems will be closer to what they saw in the cinema than the GOUT is.
That is just plain fact.

And then there are the people that for whatever reason never noticed the mattes, the glitches, the film damage and so forth when they saw it at the cinema. Maybe they were just too engrossed by the film, maybe they were too young or whatever.
For them a cleaned up glitch free version of the film will be closer to the cinematic release.
Now of course we are in the realm of philosophy: is experiencing a film the way you remembered it closer to reality?
Is recreating the experience faithfully more important than recreating the film exactly how it was?
It is going to be different for every single person. For some the ability to get lost in the film the way they did when they first saw it will be the most important thing, and that might mean fixing all the errors so they don't get pulled out of the movie.

You could argue this stuff till the cows come home, so I'm not going to get drawn into it as there is no answer, it is up to each individual.

But if you "just don't understand why people think your edit is closer to the OUT than the OUT" then nothing I can say can make you understand, but you may want to re-read point one.

Answers to your other questions are already in the threads.