AWA 2010 - Pro downloads active; Expo 4 days left, August 20

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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby Kitsuner » Fri May 21, 2010 1:57 am

I'm glad I'll have finished moving before I mail off my blank discs.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby Junipertay » Sun May 23, 2010 7:23 pm

Hi, quick question---when the rules say, "we require at least 2 seconds of black video on either side of each entry", does that mean you can have 2 seconds of black in the beginning of the video, and not at the end? Or does it mean you need 2 seconds on BOTH beginning and end?

Much thanks!

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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby Moonie » Mon May 24, 2010 8:35 am

The Pro deadline is on my birthday :D
could this be a sign?
Don't think i'd have anything in time though :cry:
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby outlawed » Mon May 24, 2010 8:59 am

Scintilla wrote:I just thought of something. For the Professional contest, if we choose to download the contest files rather than send blank DVDs...
The Rules wrote:The default and baseline format will still be DVD quality (and format) MPEG2 files...

So, do you mean individual MPEG-2 system files, or the ISOs of the authored DVDs?


If they aren't distributing this as an authored DVD Video disc they might as well just send everything as H264 MPEG-4 files to save bandwidth. Plus if you're talking quality after a recompress you aren't going to beat this with MPEG-2. My personal experience also says this is better because there is a variety of playback software and especially a lot of different MPEG-2 splitters for Windows directshow that choke on some files. Hence if these aren't authored discs then I actually foresee less compatibility playback issues with MPEG-4 H264.

Does the VAT room still output everything as MPEG-2 over a netstream (thus meaning us encoding our own MPEG-2 files that are compatible with it is the best quality since there is no recompression)? As far as Expo & Pro winners I'm assuming everything will get recompressed for a DVD that they show in Main Programming if it's like when I went in 2007.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby outlawed » Mon May 24, 2010 9:21 am

The Rules wrote:Aspect: Our projectors and screens are setup for 4:3 aspect videos, though our hardware is capable of properly supporting 16:9 content if it is encoded as such. Otherwise please letterbox wide content to conform to this resolution and 4:3 playback.


This is poorly worded as it basically says we support 16:9 if it is encoded right but you do not explicitly say how it should be encoded. There are many ways to encode 16:9 content. Do you mean to say that you accept anamorphic 720x480 MPEG-2 that is flagged 16:9 or do you mean to say the proper encoding for 16:9 content in MPEG-2 should be to letterbox it and encode as 4:3 video. Also the section is labeled MPEG but MPEG-1 does not support aspect ratio flags if my memory is correct. Do you accept videos that are encoded at 720x480 but aren't flagged as either 4:3 or 16:9? Because I know a lot of editors like to do that 3rd option especially first time MPEG-2 submitters =p.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby kholaras » Mon May 24, 2010 2:53 pm

We will not be mastering DVD video discs, and therefore won't have iso's available. The individual files will be made available as .mpeg's and, as mentioned time and resources permitting, H.264 mp4 to either download yourself or have us burn on provided media. This year we are going to transition to a software rendered solution with the Netstreams as backup, with the awards in main still played off of mastered DVDs. As such our first priority is to convert all entries to suitable MPEG2 formats since that is the lowest common denominator. We'll verify all videos against the Media Player Classic Home Cinema standalone filters, VLC, and the Netstream cards. I can double check which splitters and other filters are on the DirectShow side of things when I get home if anyone's interested.

When we use the Netstreams, we're using them in DirectShow mode and it absolutely enforces aspect ratio. As a matter of fact, it does very weird things to videos without an aspect flagged, so all videos will be tagged either way as appropriate if not submitted flagged. We have a 4:3 aspect screen, and the projector is setup accordingly. 16:9 anamorphic content will be soft letterboxed by our playback solution, be it Netstream or softcodec. If you do not wish or are uncomfortable encoding in this format then the alternative is to hard letterbox the content yourself and encode for 4:3 display. Either format is equally valid. Anamorphic support was included a few years ago at the request of various editors once our playback solutions permitted it. For reference, anyone using a Netstream can try out my DirectShow enabled player here. It's very similar in layout and usage to the venerable MCIPlay. Some simple instruction pages are available here. It won't work with an H+ card, unless you do some hackish things to get DirectShow support working, and even then the card was never really intended for use like that.

As for black leader/trailers, its always a nice thing to have before AND after. Encoders and playback options can sometimes do weird things with very abrupt starts and stops, plus it's just a little jarring for the audience.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby Scintilla » Mon May 24, 2010 6:21 pm

... So, we now have no way of watching the contest on our nice big television set.

Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.

And to think we had been thinking of hosting an AWA Pro viewing party, too.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby LantisEscudo » Mon May 24, 2010 7:23 pm

Scintilla wrote:... So, we now have no way of watching the contest on our nice big television set.

Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.

And to think we had been thinking of hosting an AWA Pro viewing party, too.


Western Digital has its HD TV Live, which works quite nicely. Composite, Component, and HDMI, and plays back almost every format I've thrown at it (Indeo and RealMedia are the only failures I've encountered). It has a couple annoying quirks (its OSD in particular), but nothing that I've found deal-breaking for general watching.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby Brad » Mon May 24, 2010 7:37 pm

Scintilla wrote:... So, we now have no way of watching the contest on our nice big television set.

Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.

And to think we had been thinking of hosting an AWA Pro viewing party, too.
Do you have a laptop with VGA/DVI-out and a nice set of speakers? Or better yet, a laptop with HDMI out? Or how about an XBox 360 or PS3? Or could you move one of your desktop PC's into the television room for an evening along with some speakers? If any of these are an option, then you're fine. You don't need to buy anything special. But yes, there are definitely specific, cheap, media-center PC's out there that work great.

This is the solution we've been using for years. I honestly can't recall the last time we needed to actually use a set-top DVD player for anything, at all.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby HalOfBorg » Mon May 24, 2010 7:38 pm

Scintilla wrote:Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.


The Patriot Box Office. I haven't tried one, but I WANT one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... t%20player

I play files I DL off of thumb drives through my DVD player's USB slot, though it is VERY touchy about audio.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby kholaras » Mon May 24, 2010 7:49 pm

The WD series players (their older one is running about $100, 2 usb ports and no network, newer Live with network support at $120, and a mini player with some reduced features for a little less than either) are pretty damned good from my understanding. The chip under the hood giving it life is made by our good old friends Sigma Designs (it's why they stopped making PC based goods. They abandoned us for the settop market).

Realtek has a line of chips in some other players like the Asus O!Play and Seagate's player. All the players have some benefits and downfalls. The WD players won't give you a menu when playing iso files (actually, can't remember if they'll play iso's at all...I know they'll play vob rips), which is the biggest bit off the top of my head. The higher end players (like the Popcorn Hours) even support the addition of a Blu-ray ROM drive and will function as a player, but are a fair bit more expensive and are a pain to get ahold of.

All the information you could want and more at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=39

And yea, I apologize. I know ya'll especially were proponents of the mastered discs so you could watch them on your tv.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Mon May 24, 2010 7:55 pm

I bought some crappy D-Link STB a while back that can't hold a candle to Lantis' solution. I'm currently using a HTPC I built with a media portal front-end. I think we're derailed the AWA topic though...
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby Brad » Mon May 24, 2010 8:48 pm

Final point about the whole playback issue. If all else fails and you absolutely can't come up with a good solution for a media center connected to your TV, you could always author your own DVD. Doesn't have to be special, and sure the quality may suffer, but if the viewing experience on your TV is important enough to you, that's a worst-case scenario solution.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby Kitsuner » Tue May 25, 2010 5:19 am

kholaras wrote:We will not be mastering DVD video discs, and therefore won't have iso's available.

Does this mean I shouldn't mail you blank DVDs this year? The rules say that's still an option, but sometimes obsolete stuff gets left in by mistake.
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Re: AWA 2010 contests posted; Pro July 23; Expo August 20

Postby dokidoki » Wed May 26, 2010 11:12 am

Kitsuner wrote:
kholaras wrote:We will not be mastering DVD video discs, and therefore won't have iso's available.

Does this mean I shouldn't mail you blank DVDs this year? The rules say that's still an option, but sometimes obsolete stuff gets left in by mistake.

The sentence after the one you quoted says, "The individual files will be made available as .mpeg's and, as mentioned time and resources permitting, H.264 mp4 to either download yourself or have us burn on provided media."
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