How do you judge contest credibility?

[Nya-chan Production]

Not even mentioning stuff like "I don't keep renders because my HDD is small" or "I kept my renders on a HDD that died on me and now I can't send an older video in, because I'd have to recreate it or render from copy I uploaded to Org"

Again, not something a coordinator should even have to think about. Those are personal problems an editor should deal with, not a contest coordinator. Not to mention those are terrible excuses for not putting padding at the beginning and end of a video. The whole argument against a contest credibility because of it is pretty mind blowing for me anyway. I'm having a hard time understanding why something so small and insignificant is even considered an issue. Even without avisynth, all you would have to do is open your master copy (or what ever copy you have available if you lost your master) in your favorite editing program, add 2 seconds to the beginning and end, export. We're talking about a processes that shouldn't take more than 20minutes on a 5 year old computer. If you're waiting until the very last moment to enter a contest and that 20minutes is too long, then you have more problems to worry about then adding some padding

I agree with most of the stuff, but still, it's a MAJOR HASSLE for NOTHING OF ADDED VALUE |: I mean, sorry, but if it's technical need on coordinator's side, shouldn't there be some... trying to solve this need, instead of enforcing all editors to re-encode their videos repeatedly and every year?
If it's something in the AMV, like... my nick is there, or there is some mistake I overlooked, I have nothing against going through the stuff again, because it adds to the AMV or because you want the judging to be anonymous... but 2s of black in front and after the end?

I could edit that 1 hour (6 yo PC upgraded last year a bit) that it takes me to render (I don't backup my masters, sorry) and encode my 3 minute video. Want to send 3 entries in? 3 hours. And that' ONE contest.

Sorry, I'll usually pass and send to some con that takes my mp4 (some cons even accept Org links these days).

[Seijin_Dinger]

Nya, this is why I dont mind adding the black to the entries. I dont require it in the rules and its not much extra effort on my part, others may feel differently and I cant fault them as thats their contest, and their way of doing things. I dont think that it should hinder the creditability of a contest though, thats like saying that if a contest allows in an advent children set to evanessence video it shouldnt be a creditable contest.

[Castor Troy]

Doesn't adding black give some time for the computer/projector/etc to sync up?

We should have all known this from the VHS days.

[Rider4Z]

Doesn't adding black give some time for the computer/projector/etc to sync up?

We should have all known this from the VHS days.

i figured adding the black was to give the projector a chance to fade in before the video starts.

why is the black required by so many conventions anyway? (i was in choir in high school, not the A/V department.)

[Scintilla]

I always thought the black leader was to make sure there would be no sync problems with the Netstream MPEG playback card...?

[Pwolf]

I agree with most of the stuff, but still, it's a MAJOR HASSLE for NOTHING OF ADDED VALUE |: I mean, sorry, but if it's technical need on coordinator's side, shouldn't there be some... trying to solve this need, instead of enforcing all editors to re-encode their videos repeatedly and every year?
If it's something in the AMV, like... my nick is there, or there is some mistake I overlooked, I have nothing against going through the stuff again, because it adds to the AMV or because you want the judging to be anonymous... but 2s of black in front and after the end?

I could edit that 1 hour (6 yo PC upgraded last year a bit) that it takes me to render (I don't backup my masters, sorry) and encode my 3 minute video. Want to send 3 entries in? 3 hours. And that' ONE contest.

Sorry, I'll usually pass and send to some con that takes my mp4 (some cons even accept Org links these days).

Honestly, sounds like you're just lazy. Which is fine. I don't really care if you don't want to put any extra time to encode your videos for whatever contest you want to enter. That's your choice. I just think it's a lazy point of view and a stupid reason to say a contest has less credibility than one that doesn't make you do more work. I'm willing to put in the extra time for my videos because I feel proud that they have the chance to be shown at the contests I like to enter. Stuff like that is only a minor hassle if one at all. It's really just part of the process of entering a contest in my mind and if I have to re-encode a video 5 times for 5 different contests during a year, I will do it, it's not that big of a deal.

Doesn't adding black give some time for the computer/projector/etc to sync up?

We should have all known this from the VHS days.

i figured adding the black was to give the projector a chance to fade in before the video starts.

why is the black required by so many conventions anyway? (i was in choir in high school, not the A/V department.)

Ryan is somewhat correct. The issue is/was that if a video started at frame 1, the projector or software/hardware decoder doesn't have enough time to make sure everything is playing back correctly so you'll get some small hiccups, slowdowns, and de-syncing (and possible artifacting) at the start of the video. These are usually cleared up as the video plays but it makes the beginning of the video very unattractive. To fix this, you add 2 seconds of black to the beginning and the end. Adding the space at the end gives the system time to switch to another track or video file and end on something that isn't part of the video which can looking like it's frozen or hanging. This gives the hardware and software enough time to make sure everything working smoothly. I've personally seen this issue on hardware MPEG2 decoders (even software ones actually), which are still used by coordinators today (Vlad's contests/video rooms and AWA come to mind) and i see it all the time on the output of my HTPC playing H264 videos to my TV. It really is a small thing that makes a big difference to make sure your videos are played back smoothly, which is something I take very seriously. The more I can do to ensure my video will be played correctly, the less I have to rely on the coordinator.

[Rider4Z]

OHHH. but why then require black in the end?

[Scintilla]

It's really just part of the process of entering a contest in my mind and if I have to re-encode a video 5 times for 5 different contests during a year, I will do it, it's not that big of a deal.

x2 -- and I wonder how much having gotten used to it has to do with how long one's been active in this hobby.
Heck, I remember recording a VHS tape for a submission to Otakon back in 2003, just in case there was something wrong with my disk, and the VHS version required 15 seconds of black on both ends.

[Pwolf]

It's really just part of the process of entering a contest in my mind and if I have to re-encode a video 5 times for 5 different contests during a year, I will do it, it's not that big of a deal.

x2 -- and I wonder how much having gotten used to it has to do with how long one's been active in this hobby.
Heck, I remember recording a VHS tape for a submission to Otakon back in 2003, just in case there was something wrong with my disk, and the VHS version required 15 seconds of black on both ends.

Very true. I ended up just adding the padding every time I make a video now (well, not all the time) so I don't have to in the future. I also submitted all of my videos on DV Tapes to anime expo starting in 2001 up until 2006ish when I stopped submitting so I needed the padding for that as well.

[Nya-chan Production]

I suppose you are right, I am mostly lazy, but it doesn't help anyway :3 After all, if some contest is credible enough (and Vlad's contests are because of Vlad and AWA.. is just AWA) I'll undergo this boring process.

But still, I feel it's worth mentioning that these little things, for whatever reason (laziness or not) help to decide when there's the fine line of "credible enough"/"not credible enough". I feel it can't really be separated, so it's fine to stick it in here.
After all, some other stuff mentioned in this thread falls under the same category as well (say, Code's example of paper/electronic mail).