Rewrite the guides...

OmniStrata · Post by **OmniStrata** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 1:05 pm

Um, I have NO problem with the guides, whatsoever...

However, I've been recieving emails. Not one, but a few concerning that the guides are too confusing...

If it's ok with the original authors

[A & E]

I'd like to do my own version of the guides using theirs as a source of information.

"2JA's AMV Export Quick Guide for Dummies..."
Just like the book series of sorts...
Perhaps I'll change "Dummies" to "Newbies" later...

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 1:49 pm

Maybe if they cant understand the guides they shouldnt be dabbling in digital video :\
cuz it gets a lot more complicated than that

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 2:52 pm

If there's anything I've learned when writing the guides, it's that there is no simple way to write them whilst still being thorough.

Feel free to take the information you have learned from the guides and put them in a more simple manner, but there are only two ways of doing this, as I see it:

1) Simplify them by sticking just to the basic things you have to do and not using much technical terminology

2) Make them longer by doing everything step-by-step with lots of pictures.

Both of these methods have problems.

1) If you do number 1 people don't learn anything - they merely "do" without knowing why. It's also very easy to make presumptions about what people want to do. Sure you can tell someone how to do one thing very simply but there are choices that are governed by what a person is using. The A&E guides are designed with this in mind and, in theory, should cover most possibilities. This, of course, doesn't make it short.

By removing these elements you can make something that is more simple to understand but one that doesn't imform people correctly about what things mean and why you sould be doing something. We could have easily written the guides just telling people what to do but there's no point in just spoonfeeding "Thou shalt inverse telecine" - if people dont know what it is doing then how are they supposed to handle results?

2) You can do method 2, but man it's painful. There are far fewer images, for example, in the current guide partly because the best software to use changes by the month. Text is easy to update - images aren't.

As for the general idea, it's fine... and I have no objection to any such project.. but I'm personally against dumbing things down. I'd much prefer someone to take time to understand what the guides mean than to just follow some "Video production by numbers" guide where they follow instructions but don't know why they are dong anything.

In my experience that just leads to people doing things wrong and not knowing why. The guides are detailed in order to avoid people making mistakes by not knowing enough about what they are doing - that is why they are so detailed. Personally I don't think there is a simpler way of describing something if you want people to know everything that the guide tells them.

The glossary was one step towards helping people with some of the more complicated technical terms., and I know that if anyone found any section to be overly vague then it could be rewritten. If people have found something hard to understand then I would prefer to rewrite it.

If it's just that they aren't taking the time to read through them properly, then there's nothing I can do. There are very clear instructions on how to do things, but there is also a lot of description as to why you should do something (and why you should not do other things). I'm sorry if that's too confusing but there's no other good way, in my opinion.

If you want to make a quick and easy way, then do so but I'd much rather people learn what it's all about than just following something step by step.

ErMaC · Post by **ErMaC** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 5:49 pm

The people who find the guides "too confusing" are generally the people who don't read them properly. They go in, expecting there to be a simple answer to their problem that they can just go DO. It's never that simple.

The guides were designed to be read through entirely. If you just skim them and look at this and that, of course you will not understand them!.

If someone comes up and asks me to play golf, I could say "You use the club to hit the ball in the hole." Now, that probably won't be very useful to those who are trying to play golf having never played before, cause they'll do it all wrong!

So when someone comes up and asks me how to encode a video for online distro, I can just say "You just encode it with XviD." Again, that will not be very useful either. Someone looking for a one-sentence explanation will be sorely disappointed - the field of video processing is just not that simple.

I really do not approve of rewriting the guides to be "dumbed down" because that's essentially what it would amount to - telling people to do "this and this and this" and be done with it is not helping them in the long run, because then the next WEEK when the technology changes (and if you're keeping up with XviD alphas and AVIsynth filters, that's what it's doing) they'll be stranded.

The trick is to teach the theory, because theory is almost always applicable. If people understand how video works and how the filtering and compression work, or at least understand their purpose (they don't have to know what an Unsharp mask is to understand MSharpen makes pictures sharper) then when new filters come out or the filtering technology changes they won't be dead in the water.

Omni, if you wanna rewrite the guides, do it while still keeping all the information in tact. Once you do that, then I might say "OK, that's a good idea, we can include it in the guide."

But if you're gonna write the GodianKnot equivalent of AMV encoding, I don't want anything to do with it.

Luke Valentine · Post by **Luke Valentine** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 6:05 pm

ErMaC is right. N00bies can't expect to be coddled. There isn't a simple answer to these problems. Take me for example: I'm just started to learn to edit subtitles out. So I came here, expecting it to be incredibly difficult. But thanks to the guides, I'm breezing through subtitle removing using the "Repeat Frame" and "Photoshop Edit" methods, and I understand the guides just fine. n00bs can't expect people to hold their hands through this process. But, if you've read their guides and you're still have problems, try reading mine:

Luke Valentine · Post by **Luke Valentine** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 6:07 pm

Dear lord, my grammar was terrible during that post haha. Sorry, I'm using photoshop to remove subtitles even as I type this, so I'm not really paying attention to my grammar or spelling. haha.

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 7:43 pm

ErMaC wrote:if you're gonna write the GodianKnot equivalent of AMV encoding, I don't want anything to do with it.

but gordianknot is a program
and er... not like I was planning on .. aw snap >.>

Ashton · Post by **Ashton** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 8:22 pm

ErMaC wrote:The trick is to teach the theory, because theory is almost always applicable. If people understand how video works and how the filtering and compression work, or at least understand their purpose (they don't have to know what an Unsharp mask is to understand MSharpen makes pictures sharper) then when new filters come out or the filtering technology changes they won't be dead in the water.

Yeah, I actually have a lot of fun reading about video theory, thats why Ive become so interested in Doom9 of late. Im also getting to the point where I think it would be cool if you and absolute destiny would discuss the theory in more detail, more about the inner workings of the programs (especially AVIsynth and XviD, I spent all of last night trying to figure out what quantizer, and quantizer matrix are exactly, for example. I didnt succeed

) Anyway, the stuff of Doom9 is fun and all, but the way the guides on the org are especially written to the interest of an AMV creator keeps them more on the applicable side (IE I really have very little interest in reading about dividing a movie between two CDs, but a lot of the time thats the kind of guide where the info I want can be found) Anyway, the point is that I wholeheartedly agree with what you said, and I salute the two of you and your guides in all of their cruel and difficult ways!

NME · Post by **NME** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 8:41 pm

No matter how good a guide is, there'll always be someone too stupid to understand it.

You choose Sam,the rest · Post by **You choose Sam,the rest** » Mon Dec 23, 2002 10:11 pm

NME wrote:No matter how good a guide is, there'll always be someone too stupid to understand it.

That would be me