re: CORRECT the resample consequence -- the captures are crops, not resamples

The port pre-registered a test and ran it: against live-splash-publisher.png
a cropped render scores RMSE 558.1 (0.85%) and a scaled one 10118.8
(15.4%). Cropping is 18x better.

Confirmed here independently, from a different observable: the committed
captures are 1279x675, 1280x690 and 1252x754. VARYING heights. A fixed
presenter resample produces one size; crops of differently-sized windows
produce exactly that spread. And ui-render-tone-curve.md had already
recorded every capture aligning at dy=0 dx=0 with correlation 0.9466, which
a 0.9375 vertical scale cannot produce -- the evidence was in the corpus
before I wrote the claim.

So the captures are crops of a 1:1 surface, and every RMSE, glyph count and
surface mean against them is pixels to pixels with no filter to caveat. The
blanket "everything measured off a PNG carries the resample" is withdrawn.

Not refuted: the cvar reading. Canary does letterbox by default. What is
refuted is my inference that the corpus's capture path went through it.
Whether the presenter is bypassed, the window is 1:1, or the tool crops
before saving is open and unestablished.

The error is the one this session keeps paying for: I read a configuration
and inferred a consequence FOR THE DATA without testing it against the
data. The test costs one render and one RMSE and I had every capture needed
to run it.

Also downgrades my refutation of the corpus's oracle principle from
"survives with a qualifier" to "survives, and my qualifier was wrong",
kept rather than deleted because the failure is the instructive part.

Section 1 (gamma: VdGetCurrentDisplayGamma is kStub, the splash shader has
no pow/ramp/lookup) and the two-path distinction stand unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Jc4pciRArGHfxGGhEbwp5t

docs/re/canary-processing-between-guest-and-capture.md

@@ -1,4 +1,40 @@
-# ✅ What Canary does between the guest's draw and a captured pixel — and which of our measurements it touches
+# What Canary does between the guest's draw and a captured pixel
+
+> # 🔴 CORRECTION 2026-09-02, same day — §2's CONSEQUENCE is REFUTED
+>
+> I wrote that the presenter's letterbox-and-scale is in the capture path, that
+> it explains the 1279×675 surface, and that **"everything measured off a PNG
+> carries the resample."** The port pre-registered a test and ran it: against
+> `live-splash-publisher.png`, a **cropped** render scores RMSE **558.1 (0.85 %)**
+> and a **scaled** one **10 118.8 (15.4 %)**. **Cropping is 18× better.**
+>
+> ✅ **Confirmed independently here, from a different observable.** The committed
+> captures are **1279×675**, **1280×690**, **1252×754** — *varying* heights. A
+> fixed presenter resample produces one size; **crops of differently-sized
+> windows produce exactly this spread.** And `ui-render-tone-curve.md` already
+> recorded every capture aligning at `dy=0 dx=0`, correlation 0.9466, which a
+> 0.9375 vertical scale cannot produce. The evidence was in the corpus before I
+> wrote the claim.
+>
+> **So the captures are CROPS of a 1:1 surface, not resamples**, and every RMSE,
+> glyph count and surface mean against them is pixels to pixels with no filter to
+> caveat.
+>
+> ⚠️ **What is NOT refuted:** the cvar reading itself. Canary *does* letterbox by
+> default. What is refuted is my inference that the corpus's capture path went
+> through it. Whether the presenter is bypassed, the window is 1:1, or the tool
+> crops the letterbox before saving is **open and unestablished**.
+>
+> 🔴 **The error is the one this session keeps paying for.** I read a
+> configuration and inferred a consequence *for the data* without testing it
+> against the data — the same shape as reading a base-address change as a decode.
+> The test that refutes it costs one render and one RMSE, and I had every capture
+> needed to run it.
+>
+> §1 (gamma) and the two-paths distinction in §3 stand; §3's blanket caveat does
+> not. Corrected in place below.
+
+
 
 **Status: ✅ decoded from Canary's own source.** Instrument: ⟨canary-source⟩,
 with ⟨capture⟩ for the dumped guest shader. 2026-09-02.
@@ -37,7 +73,7 @@ max oC0, r1, r1
 **No `pow`, no ramp, no lookup.** Nothing in the splash path applies gamma —
 neither side of the emulation boundary.
 
-## 2 — geometry: **yes, the presenter resamples**
+## 2 — geometry: ⚠️ the presenter CAN resample, but the corpus's captures are CROPS
 
 `presenter.cc` defaults:
 
@@ -46,11 +82,15 @@ neither side of the emulation boundary.
 | `present_letterbox` | **true** | aspect preserved, bars added rather than stretching |
 | `present_safe_area_x` / `_y` | **100** | nothing cropped |
 
-So the guest's 1280×720 is **scaled to fit the host window and letterboxed**. That
-is a resample, and it explains a number the corpus has carried without accounting
-for it: captures measure the game surface at **1279×675**, not 1280×720. A
-single-pixel oracle placed at 1280×720 coordinates read the copyright line instead
-— which is exactly the failure `wait_title.sh` was found to have.
+So Canary *would* scale the guest's 1280×720 to fit the host window and letterbox
+it. 🔴 **But the committed captures did not go through that**, per the correction
+above — they are crops. The 1279×675 surface is a **cropped window grab**, not a
+scaled one, which the varying capture sizes (1279×675, 1280×690, 1252×754) show
+directly.
+
+⚠️ **The `wait_title.sh` single-pixel failure is still real** and still explained:
+a coordinate valid at 1280×720 lands outside a 1279×675 *crop* just as surely as
+outside a scaled one. The failure was the fixed coordinate, not the transform.
 
 ## 3 — 🔴 So there are TWO measurement paths, and only one has Canary in it
 
@@ -66,28 +106,28 @@ guest's intent and that number** — which is why
 [`splash-interpolates-every-frame.md`](splash-interpolates-every-frame.md) can
 state per-frame alphas as the game's values rather than as pixels we measured.
 
-⚠️ **Everything in this corpus measured off a PNG carries the resample.** That
-includes every RMSE against a capture, every glyph count, every surface mean, and
-the `motion-census` numbers the play-test quotes for the port. It does not make
-them wrong — a resample preserves *change*, which is what a motion census
-measures — but it does mean a pixel-exact comparison is comparing through a
-filter nobody has characterised.
+🔴 **The blanket caveat I attached here is WITHDRAWN.** I claimed everything
+measured off a PNG carries a resample. It does not: the captures are crops, and
+pixel-exact comparison against them is pixels to pixels. The two-path
+*distinction* stands — the vertex stream still has strictly less between the
+guest and the number — but the practical gap is far smaller than I said, and a
+large body of shared evidence needs no qualifier.
 
 ## Refutation attempt, recorded per the adversarial duty
 
 **Target:** this corpus's own founding principle, stated at the top of three
 documents — *"the oracle is the real game running in Xenia Canary, captured."*
 
-**Result: it SURVIVES, but it needs a qualifier it has never carried.** A capture
-is the oracle **plus a resample** whenever it is a PNG. For ordering, counts,
-durations and change — the quantities `TEMPORAL-VERIFICATION.md` already tells us
-to prefer — the resample is harmless. For anything pixel-exact it is a filter in
-the path, and the corpus has been treating PNG captures and vertex-stream captures
-as the same kind of evidence when one has an uncharacterised transform in it and
-the other has none.
+**Result: it SURVIVES, and my proposed qualifier was WRONG.** I claimed a PNG
+capture is "the oracle plus a resample". The port tested it and it is not — the
+captures are crops, and the principle needs no amendment. Recorded as a failed
+refutation rather than deleted, because the failure is instructive: I tried to
+attach a caveat to a large body of evidence on the strength of a config file, and
+the check that would have stopped me was one render and one RMSE.
 
-**The vertex stream is the stronger oracle** and should be preferred wherever the
-question can be asked of it.
+**The vertex stream is still the cleaner instrument** — strictly less sits between
+the guest and the number — but that is now a statement about robustness, not a
+correction to anything measured.
 
 ## Reach