List of AMV Resources & How-To Guides

[Radical_Yue]

Mp4 all the way.

Any good contest coordinator knows that not only does the audience want videos that are awesome overall, they also want awesome visual quality. I mean, everything is 1080p this or ZOMGHD that, so it's the job of a coordinator to give the audience a sick contest that looks great. MPEG-2 looks like ass and the file sizes are huge. As for Mp4, it's smaller, better quality, and I've never had a playback issue that a simple re-converting didn't fix.

The best way that I've seen a contest run is with a computer as the main playback device and DVDs/Bluray as back up. Of course you can't just throw files on a disk, hell yes they can get messed up. But then again, any coordinator that just throws files onto a disk and says "cross yer fingers! I hope dis works!" shouldn't be coordinating in the first place. Lots of time + days of trial and error come with the territory.

I'll take a 70mb mp4 that makes my eyes melt with it's shinyness over a 200mb+ MPEG-2 that looks like it was beaten with an ugly stick any day.

[Phantasmagoriat]

Okay, I was a bit torn where to list that guide, since it is still in use; however, with the way things are going, I think MPEG is going to wind up there anyway. At least by categorizing it this way, it encourages people to use much better standards, without obliterating the guide from the list completely. I mean, it will still be there if people need it.

Also, these days I don't think it's necessary to go through the trouble of authoring a DVD when you can just use VGA/audio-out to the projector from a computer. We don't have to rely on DVD players for playback any more, do we? To me, it just makes more sense to play the file as-is. You skip all the annoying conversion/authoring steps; you don't introduce any extra errors through conversion; you get to play files at higher res then SD; it allows you to make last-minute changes; it mostly fixes AR problems; and it's just easier. All you have to do is make sure CCCP+MPC or VLC or whatever you wish to use for playback are up to date, and let entrants know what playback method you are using so they can verify playback on their own computers; which is another thing you couldn't really do in the past, and yet another reason why people need to stop using MPEG.

So, at least by listing it as an Older Guide, it might encourage contests to upgrade, and prevent everyone from being stuck in the past.

So, Scintilla, is it okay if I do that I mean, I don't want to misrepresent your guide, since you wrote it and all, but I just see MPEG as... old.

[BasharOfTheAges]

The number of conventions that "prefer" MPEG-2 dwindles each year, more and more replaced with mp4. It's still accepted, of course, but it isn't the standard that it once was. It's not an entirely obsolete guide, but it is older.

It's older, but then again, the biggest reason is that convention organizers still prefer something simple. MPEG-2 still remains a standard since you can put all of the videos easily on a DVD and just hand it off to pop in and play the contest. For bigger conventions, that isn't an issue--they tend to be more "professional" and have hook-ups ready for computers or even BluRay playback, if the coordinator has the right hardware for that--but a lot of conventions will still prefer the "cheap" solution of DVDs. The common opinion is that the average viewer still simply won't care if the video is HD or SD, if the video is clean enough and sizes rather well on the big screens.

You're giving contest coordinators too much credit.

Most rule sets that have specific requirements have them because the person writing the rules cribbed their rules from another contest's rules back in the day and their minimal year-to-year revisions haven't changed things that much.

You are correct about some cons having outdated playback capabilities. Not all of them are simply cheap, though. A lot of tech people build their own little fiefdoms and demand things be a certain way so they don't have to do more work to add more to the set-ups. A lot of cons could move into this new modern era of playback if there were more communication between the techs running the room the contest is played in and the people running said contest. And I don't mean at the con - I mean months before time. And if they don't or won't listen to you, you play the system and go over their heads to their bosses and make nice so your suggestions get flowed down. It also doesn't hurt if you, as the person running the contest, invest in the tech needed for the improvements, so they can't claim budget as an excuse to say no.

[DriftRoot]

But since I don't want to misrepresent your guide, do you have any particular preferences where I should put it in the list? I was thinking of removing the [Masking/Rotoscoping] label, and maybe moving it to section D.

Definitely remove the masking/rotoscoping label...as far as putting it in a different section, I don't have a problem with "Misc. Tech" or PS, I guess, though PS defines it a little too narrowly. Mainly I want to avoid someone skipping over it because of the "Oh, I don't need to know how to use the pen tool in Photoshop. Who masks in PS when you can rotoscope in AE??" syndrome.

Is there any way you could bring down the file size of the .pdf? I mean, it looks cool and all, but 77.7MB seems like a lot for an 18 page guide; and it might have something to do with the way the file is saved; but I don't really know how the guide was created. ofc, if you can't, that's fine too, I just think it might deter people from downloading and reading the guide all together.

Yeah...I talked to one of the admins (doki?) about this last year, asking if I could redo the guide and have it put up again in a different format. They said sure, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I will push it up on my project list. The file is very large for a couple of reasons I take full blame for (mostly my ignorance at the time), but one of the main ones is that it contains a lot of high quality images and embedded videos. I don't know if I can redo the guide in a non-PDF format (I don't really "do" HTML), but I will give it a shot. Probably will take me awhile and I might need some technical help or guidance at some point...

[Phantasmagoriat]

Is there any way you could bring down the file size of the .pdf? I mean, it looks cool and all, but 77.7MB seems like a lot for an 18 page guide; and it might have something to do with the way the file is saved; but I don't really know how the guide was created. ofc, if you can't, that's fine too, I just think it might deter people from downloading and reading the guide all together.

Yeah...I talked to one of the admins (doki?) about this last year, asking if I could redo the guide and have it put up again in a different format. They said sure, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I will push it up on my project list. The file is very large for a couple of reasons I take full blame for (mostly my ignorance at the time), but one of the main ones is that it contains a lot of high quality images and embedded videos. I don't know if I can redo the guide in a non-PDF format (I don't really "do" HTML), but I will give it a shot. Probably will take me awhile and I might need some technical help or guidance at some point...

Oh! Sorry, I didn't realize the guide had embedded videos! That actually makes a lot of sense now. It's just, in the beginning, all I saw was a .pdf that wasn't loading. Then I realized it was ~80MB and thought "wow that's big," but that makes sense now. I should probably get around to actually reading it one of these days too (I mean, I can't honestly say I've read everything there is to know about AMVs and video editing... not even close.)

[DriftRoot]

Oh! Sorry, I didn't realize the guide had embedded videos! That actually makes a lot of sense now. It's just, in the beginning, all I saw was a .pdf that wasn't loading. Then I realized it was ~80MB and thought "wow that's big," but that makes sense now. I should probably get around to actually reading it one of these days too (I mean, I can't honestly say I've read everything there is to know about AMVs and video editing... not even close.)

'Tis ok, like I said, I am not happy with it either, but it was the only thing I could do at the time. It was made back in the day when making video tutorials was not something every Tom, Dick and Haruhi did in their sleep, and this was as close as I could come to showing what I was trying to TELL people. The video files themselves are antiques and almost unworkable, now. I need to convert them to a different format like FLV and hopefully they will be better compressed...but I don't know, yet.

Heh, this is JUST the excuse I needed to avoid working on my current AMV!! Thank you so much! LOL

[Phantasmagoriat]

hehe, distractions can be good sometimes.

Just as a suggestion, I would maybe consider making your guide through a web interface. You'll have a decent amount of options to present information; and it's already web-ready when you make it, without having to worry about hosting or anything. It also keeps your information connected to the web for people to comment, and ask each other questions. Because writing a guide is one thing; but having the ability to communicate with others that deal with the same problems is far more valuable IMO. I find, even just using these forums with lists, and fonts works pretty good: Just highlight the text you want to modify, then click a button to do what you want. At least, that's how I put together this List of Resources.

Or you could use any number of blog interfaces, which is what I'm currently doing with my own guide here: http://amvguide.blogspot.com/

[Nya-chan Production]

If you want to I'll style and organize your guide in HTML/web encode terms if you just update it and lay it down ;x

[Phantasmagoriat]

Nya, I'm assuming you were talking to DriftRoot? But if you were talking to me, thanks for the offer; but my guide really does needs to be done blog-style.

[DriftRoot]

If you want to I'll style and organize your guide in HTML/web encode terms if you just update it and lay it down ;x

REALLY??!! That would be awesome...I'll PM you!