Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby ngsilver » Tue Feb 22, 2011 12:19 am

I should say to keep in mind (I wasn't at home to test it out when I answered before) but if you put 44khz audio into zarxgui that's what you'll get out. So you have to convert your audio to 48khz before putting it into zarxgui. Mirko or someone else who knows more about the inner workings of getting an mp4 out might know what specific flags you can add to the code that zarxgui produces in order to get audio to convert to 48khz sample rate when encoding the AAC.

Me, I'd throw my audio stream into my favorite audio editing program (audacity) and use it to alter the sample rate for this. Though, generally I'd let tmpegenc do it for me when making an mpeg2.
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby Kazemon15 » Thu Mar 03, 2011 12:34 pm

Okay.

I managed to download the new Zarx and make it MP4 with AAC audio, but the problem now is that the audio is slightly off sync. Is that normal when you use the new Zarx?

If I can't fix the audio sync, I'm considering making it Mpeg-2, but I never did that before, so I am not sure how to. Sorry for any trouble and thanks for all your help!
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby SailorDeath » Thu Mar 03, 2011 2:35 pm

Kazemon15 wrote:Okay.

I managed to download the new Zarx and make it MP4 with AAC audio, but the problem now is that the audio is slightly off sync. Is that normal when you use the new Zarx?

If I can't fix the audio sync, I'm considering making it Mpeg-2, but I never did that before, so I am not sure how to. Sorry for any trouble and thanks for all your help!



Tis okay, what did you import it as? when you select an AVI file it will sometimes ask you if you want to open it as AVISource or DirectShowSource. If the file is in an AVI Container you will want to use AVISource. I used to have the same problem when exporting a huffyuv file and then importing it into zarx as directshowsource. The black bitmaps that I used at the beginning and end of each video were causing it to go out of sync. The problem went away when I imported it as an avisource file. (I don't know the specific but it has to do with the way directshow handles stills within a video (that is a single frame that doesn't change like the 1 second clip of black we ask people to put at the beginning and end of each video)
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:37 pm

I know your rules say you support a 720p frame size, but what's the resolution / AR on your projector?

Situation: I have a 4:3 (960x720) video currently being pillar-boxed to 16:9 (1280x720) so I want to know if you'd be projecting in 720p or down-scaling and letter-boxing on top of my pillar boxed 16:9 making the result needlessly small.
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby SailorDeath » Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:43 pm

We will more than likely be at a resolution of 1024x768, we use a video switcher with a scaler in it. And the PC that is playing the videos will be at a 4:3 AR for the most part.
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:10 pm

SailorDeath wrote:We will more than likely be at a resolution of 1024x768, we use a video switcher with a scaler in it. And the PC that is playing the videos will be at a 4:3 AR for the most part.

So, would you prefer 960x720 resolutions for your list of MP4 frame sizes instead of 1280x720?
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby SailorDeath » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:30 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:
SailorDeath wrote:We will more than likely be at a resolution of 1024x768, we use a video switcher with a scaler in it. And the PC that is playing the videos will be at a 4:3 AR for the most part.

So, would you prefer 960x720 resolutions for your list of MP4 frame sizes instead of 1280x720?


It depends on your source, if it's letterboxed you're probably better off with 1280x720, if it's 4:3 then go with the 960x720. THe computer will look at the AR flag and adjust the AR for the video based on the resolution. Either way it'll be displayed properly if it's flagged correctly.
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:50 pm

SailorDeath wrote:
BasharOfTheAges wrote:
SailorDeath wrote:We will more than likely be at a resolution of 1024x768, we use a video switcher with a scaler in it. And the PC that is playing the videos will be at a 4:3 AR for the most part.

So, would you prefer 960x720 resolutions for your list of MP4 frame sizes instead of 1280x720?


It depends on your source, if it's letterboxed you're probably better off with 1280x720, if it's 4:3 then go with the 960x720. THe computer will look at the AR flag and adjust the AR for the video based on the resolution. Either way it'll be displayed properly if it's flagged correctly.

Oh, I understand the mechanics of it - Just wanted a :up: to do something that wasn't within the letter of the law spelled out. :sweat:
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby ngsilver » Fri Mar 04, 2011 1:46 pm

I keep forgetting that there are 720p sources that are 4:3. It's an oversight in the rules. But yes, if you submit 960x720 and set the AR flag correctly then no matter what resolution we end up running at it will display properly. I'll accept that resolution even if it isn't listed in the rules. In fact the less actual letterboxing or pillarboxing in the video itself we receive the better. That way we can show the full quality of the video if it doesn't fit within the AR of the projector.
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby Rider4Z » Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:08 pm

i'm in. :shark:
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby SailorDeath » Thu Mar 17, 2011 2:33 am

Just a reminder, less than a month before the deadline!!
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby SailorDeath » Sat Apr 02, 2011 2:24 pm

Just a bump to let you guys know there are now 14 days left.
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby LittleAtari » Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:27 pm

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Here's the specs of the video that Kaz submitted to Acen. I dont see anything wrong with the audio, unless I'm missing something....
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby ngsilver » Mon Apr 04, 2011 1:42 pm

LittleAtari wrote:http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y135/LittleAtari/KazEntry-1.png

Here's the specs of the video that Kaz submitted to Acen. I dont see anything wrong with the audio, unless I'm missing something....
SailorDeath wrote:[•] MPEG-4 file format requirements
    [-] Progressive Video Only
    [-] 640 x 480, 848 x 480, 1280x720 Frame Size
    [-] 23.976 or 29.97 Frames per Second
    [-] H.264 video compression
    [-] 48 kHz AAC Stereo Audio. We recommend LC-AAC at 160 kbps instead of HE-AAC.
    [-] Display Aspect Ratio 1:1 (Remember you are submitting in square pixels).


Notice the section related to audio and the fact that it only shows 1 channel? Now look at the mp4 requirements for audio and that it requires stereo.

Contest FAQ wrote:Perform Quality Control
-----------------------------------------------
The majority of the tech problems we see with submissions are the result of poor Quality Control. Do not create extra work for yourself. Just because your file plays in your media player do not assume you have formatted it properly. Always double check your file and compare the output you encoded. If you burned a disc don't assume a verify pass means its good. You must play back the file and watch it all the way through.

A program like http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en is useful for checking your file's formatting from its header but you should still always watch the entire video through to see if there are problems. Programs like this can often report things slightly different from playback so it still does not hurt to triple check and use another program to check and see how the file is actually being decoded.


I use both the program listed in the FAQ above as well as GSpot in order to check the settings of a video, as well as watch it all the way through, before it passes the first QC check and the video is received. Both of these programs shows that there is only 1 audio channel and it is marked as Mono, not even joint Stereo. As we stated in the entry system, we only accept 48khz Stereo audio.
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Re: Anime Central 2011 AMV Contest

Postby LittleAtari » Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:50 pm

ngsilver wrote:
LittleAtari wrote:http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y135/LittleAtari/KazEntry-1.png

Here's the specs of the video that Kaz submitted to Acen. I dont see anything wrong with the audio, unless I'm missing something....
SailorDeath wrote:[•] MPEG-4 file format requirements
    [-] Progressive Video Only
    [-] 640 x 480, 848 x 480, 1280x720 Frame Size
    [-] 23.976 or 29.97 Frames per Second
    [-] H.264 video compression
    [-] 48 kHz AAC Stereo Audio. We recommend LC-AAC at 160 kbps instead of HE-AAC.
    [-] Display Aspect Ratio 1:1 (Remember you are submitting in square pixels).


Notice the section related to audio and the fact that it only shows 1 channel? Now look at the mp4 requirements for audio and that it requires stereo.

Contest FAQ wrote:Perform Quality Control
-----------------------------------------------
The majority of the tech problems we see with submissions are the result of poor Quality Control. Do not create extra work for yourself. Just because your file plays in your media player do not assume you have formatted it properly. Always double check your file and compare the output you encoded. If you burned a disc don't assume a verify pass means its good. You must play back the file and watch it all the way through.

A program like http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en is useful for checking your file's formatting from its header but you should still always watch the entire video through to see if there are problems. Programs like this can often report things slightly different from playback so it still does not hurt to triple check and use another program to check and see how the file is actually being decoded.


I use both the program listed in the FAQ above as well as GSpot in order to check the settings of a video, as well as watch it all the way through, before it passes the first QC check and the video is received. Both of these programs shows that there is only 1 audio channel and it is marked as Mono, not even joint Stereo. As we stated in the entry system, we only accept 48khz Stereo audio.


I didnt notice that it wasn't stereo D= Thanks Nate.
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