Anime Sushi AMV Contest Returns at MegaCon 2014

[Sakura_Himeno]

Anime Sushi AMV Contest 2014

QUICK FACTS!
Contest Day: March 2014
Deadline: Sunday, February 23th
Formats: Mpeg4, Mpeg2, Mpeg1, AVI (specific format instructions below)
Who can enter: Anyone
Prize for winning: Something good from our friendly donating companies, bragging rights, etc.
Contact: email at amv@animesushi.org, or at sushiamv@gmail.com
Do I need to read the rest of the rules?: Absolutely, you need to keep reading because there are quite a few things you need to be aware of if you want your video to actually qualify for the contest.

RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR SUBMISSION:

Thank you for your interest in Anime Sushi’s AMV Contest at MegaCon 2014! This information will serve as a guide to the contest, the rules and regulations for entry into it. Included are pertinent dates, our submission guidelines, submission instructions and helpful tips on video compression and conversion for those that would like them.

The 2014 Anime Sushi AMV Contest will once again accepting only digital/online submissions. This is primarily due to convenience and partially due to our desire to simplify the entry and presentation methods. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause anyone.

The deadline to have your video to us is SUNDAY FEBRUARY 23th, 11:59PM. After that we will no longer be accepting entries. NO Entries will be accepted at the convention since we need to judge and put together our presentation. Thank you and we’re sorry for any trouble this causes. Also, the earlier you send your submission, the better. Putting this thing together takes time.

If you are not currently a member of the AnimeSushi.com forums, go and join - this is a great way to talk to your fellow submitters, ask questions, post in the AMV technical questions thread, review the rules, or just hang out and talk about plans for the contest.

All submissions that are going to be uploaded must be uploaded online (your own website, animemusicvideos.org, or a file share service like dropbox, google drive, or spideroak). A public link to the file must be sent to amv@animesushi.organd/or sushiamv@gmail.com along with your entry information (see “Submission Instructions” for entry information details).

The following formats will be accepted:

Mpeg 4 (.mp4)
Mpeg 2 (DVD ready please)
Mpeg 1 (though this format has been sketchy for us before)
AVI (mpeg4, divx and DV compressed AVI’s ONLY)

Please note, we DO NOT accept Windows Media (.wmv) files for the contest. Not only can we not convert them properly, the quality on them is usually awful.

If you have another format you would like to submit in, and you want to ask us about it, please email and we will consider it, or try to work with it, as long as it is high quality.

Files should be no more than 2GB in size, maximum. If you would like to submit a file larger than 2GB (probably no reason for it to be so large, but just incase), please email amv@animesushi.org or ask a question in the AMV questions thread on the Anime Sushi forum before uploading for special permission to do so.

We are also able to accept submissions over AIM/iChat or other messenger services, though this is not the preferred method of receiving submissions.

If you are unsure about which of these formats to use or are having difficulty converting your video, please consult the tips and tricks at the bottom of this document for suggestions and ideas you could potentially utilize to get your video into one of the required formats.

THE CONTEST, THE SHOWING, THE LIMITS:

The Anime Sushi AMV contest is a contest in which music videos consisting of Japanese Animation source footage are entered, judged, and shown to an audience at Mega Convention in March. Videos must consist of footage from primarily Japanese Animation and/or Japanese video game and other Japanese animated media sources in order to be qualified for this contest.

Videos will be converted and burned to DVD and will be displayed for the contest via a DVD player. The reason for this is to ensure that the contest will not encounter any unfortunate technical difficulties, and because a single DVD disc is lighter than a video server computer. The contest is typically limited to two hours, though we reserve the right to adjust this if necessary. This limit means that some of the videos we receive may not be shown as part of the main contest. We regret that this sometimes needs to happen, but the contest consistently receives so many videos that we must either have an incredibly long show and risk people being unwilling to watch the contest, or eliminating some videos from consideration and competition. Videos that are eliminated from the main contest will be given to Anime Sushi’s showing department for display during showing block breaks, or, may be entered into the Friday night AMV Inferno (at the video creator’s discretion).

COMPRESSION GUIDELINES:

For ease of the transitioning your videos from digital files to DVD ready media, please be sure to follow these guidelines as closely as you possibly can. Also, since we will be converting videos for playback, please be sure that your video is in as high a quality format as possible as they conversion will not be kind to the look of lower-quality videos.

720x480 Pixels is Standard Definition video size for a DVD. If you submit a video at anything below 720x480, you run the risk of having your video look a pixelated when it is converted, so please BEWARE. Audio should also be as high a quality as possible, so please keep it 16bit/44.1k if at all possible. If you have a video at a higher resolution, 1080, 720, etc., that is fine, just understand that we will be bumping it down to SD for display, and we would rather have you decide how to preserve the frame size than us.

The maximum length for videos for this contest is 7 Minutes. Videos over 7 minutes will be disqualified. Please feel free to include studio bumpers at the beginning and end of your videos for identification purposes within the 7 minute limit.

You may submit ONE video for entry into this Anime Music Video contest. You may send along a second video for general showing and display purposes (these will likely be shown in a separate time slot and/or before/between other events), or may submit a different video to the AMV Inferno event, but only one video may be submitted for the Sunday AMV Contest. Please restrict extra videos to the same format guidelines and size constraints. For instructions about uploading your contest submission and possible extra video, please continue on to the submission instructions section below.

DISCLAIMERS:

Anime Sushi reserve the right to cut any submission from the contest for content (i.e. excessive violence, sexually explicit, or other potentially offensive content) or for any other reason which we feel case the video to be “inappropriate” for viewing by the audience that will be in attendance. We have done this in the past mainly because we want the contest to be, if not “family friendly,” at least not blatantly offensive. We have created the AMV Inferno event for videos that do not fit into the requirements for the AMV Contest, and if we are not able to show your video in the Sunday AMV Contest due to content, we will attempt to contact you to see if you would like to be entered, instead, into the AMV Inferno. Please note, though, that videos featuring hateful content in terms of race, gender, creed, etc., will not be admitted into the contest, nor will they be shown as any part of the video presentation at MegaCon 2014. We are open minded, but there is a line.

We will do our best to get every qualifying video submitted for the contest into the contest, but that is by NO MEANS a guarantee that we will be able to. Please be aware, this is something we do in our spare time, so if we have trouble with a video, rather than spend hours attempting to figure out what bizarre settings you used to create your video, we would prefer to move on and finish converting the videos of the people who followed our guidelines. We also reserve the right to change the contest and submission guidelines at any time.

Attendance at the convention is not required to enter the contest, nor is it required to win. The winners will be notified by email that they won, but the contest organizers will not be mailing any prizes to anyone who is not at the contest - if you want your prize or certificate, be sure to be at the contest. Entrance into the viewing room to the contest does require a convention admission wrist-band.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:

Entrants into the 2014 Anime Sushi AMV Contest must send an email to amv@animesushi.org or sushiamv@gmail.com with “MegaCon 2014 AMV Contest Entry” as the subject line. In this email you should include:

1.) Your Real Name
2.) Your Studio Name / Nickname (if you have one)
3.) Your Video Title
4.) The Settings/Program you used to convert/edit/compress your video
5.) Your email address or other pertinent contact information (incase we have trouble with your video)
6.) Your Sushi Forum User ID
7.) A link to your video file (wherever it is)

Don't forget, we want files to be under 2 GB. Please be sure to name your files sensibly (with the title of the video, and your AMV creator name in the file name somewhere so we can identify the file).

Once your file has uploaded, and you have sent your email with your information to amv@Animesushi.org please feel free to introduce yourself to the other forum members, send along an extra AMV for general showing, or just read what other Sushi members are talking about.

We prefer NOT to go outside of the bounds of these rules, but if it becomes necessary, we will consider requests for manual submission and alternate formats. If you find that you are unable to follow our guidelines and would like to suggest an alternate method of submission, please contact us.

Good luck!

TIPS AND TRICKS:

Here are few quick tips for good quality audio and video, as well as helpful suggestions as to software that will allow you to compress your finished video into one of the required formats for contest submission.

First, start with good source material. This can be a deep, troubling philosophical question, but if you're starting with Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, etc., and you're planning on building a VERY ANGRY FIGHTING VIDEO WITH SCREAMING NUMETAL (aka wuss metal), sad as I am to inform you of this, you're not getting off to a good start and will be facing a very steep uphill battle to impress the judges (we've seen that video before... many... many... many times). In fact, if I have to watch any more videos featuring Linkin Park, I might lose it.

How you rip your material is also important. Use a good quality ripper, and a good converter. I love Mac the Ripper and MPEG Streamclip, personally, but that's me, and I'm a dork. There are SO many ripping/converting bundles out there (see a few listed below), so try a few, and pick the one that works for you. Yeah, it takes some work, but no one ever said making AMVs was easy... in fact, they usually say the exact opposite.

The software you use for editing your material can make a huge difference in your video's ultimate quality. You could invest in software, of course (Final Cut is great, Vegas Video is awesome, Premiere is good). Or, you could use the program that comes with your computer (iMovie or Windows Movie Maker)... which can be troubling. There are other free software bundles out there to be had (Wax, Zwei-Stein, and others, I'm sure, that a nice web search would turn up). Pick a software that won't get in the way of your editing, gives you lots of high-quality export options, and lets you work with high quality source material. That's the best way to go.

After you're done editing, try to compress your video with high bitrates (for instance, an mpeg4 should be no lower than 700kbps in bitrate, below that is a little grainy), and use "good" or "best" quality settings (like, between 75% and 100%) in your video software. Try to keep your source footage at it's original size, and use the highest quality footage available (like, DVD rips, for instance). Try to give us videos that are 720x480 pixels (dv25 default size) for clarity, and try to make your audio at 44.1kHz, 16bit (aka RedBook CD format, or the digital format on Audio CDs). If your only copy of the song is from an mp3, try to convert that mp3 into a 44.1kHz/16bit (or, better, yet, 48/24) .wav or .aiff file for the actual editing session, and if your software allows you to, export using "Enhanced sample rate conversion". And, please do your best to buy the CD of the artist who's song you're using. It's a nice thing to do, after all. For tips on how to get your videos edited, or into the right format, check outhttp://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ for a-m-v.org guides. Some great software for video conversion you should be aware of:

Tsunami Mpeg Encoder - The free version of this program will let you create a nice MPEG2 (and you get MPEG2 conversion free for a month or so, also perfect for our contest). http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html
Virtual Dub - Great free AVI compression tool - http://www.virtualdub.org
Mpeg Streamclip - Phenomenal software, very useful - http://www.squared5.com/
Handbrake - Might be useful for someone, including it, why not.

Don't let anything get in the way of the artistic merit of your video shining through!

[paulkyoun]

Some great software for video conversion you should be aware of:

Tsunami Mpeg Encoder - The free version of this program will let you create a nice MPEG2 (and you get MPEG2 conversion free for a month or so, also perfect for our contest). http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html
Virtual Dub - Great free AVI compression tool - http://www.virtualdub.org
Mpeg Streamclip - Phenomenal software, very useful - http://www.squared5.com/
Handbrake - Might be useful for someone, including it, why not.

Don't let anything get in the way of the artistic merit of your video shining through!

Another great program called AppGeeker, does all kinds of converting,
http://www.appgeeker.com/how-to/convert ... i-mac.html
I have used for a while and works well.