Stupid newbie questions

[godix]

A few quick questions from someone halfway through starting their first video:

1) What aspect ratio should be used? I'm thinking 320X240 for web distribution and if I ever want to make a video to be shown at a convention that should be 640X480. Am I correct?

2) How much are non-standard videos tolerated? For example, the one I plan on teaching myself video editing with is a Lain/Dance Dance Revolution video where I plan on having in game footage with Lain edited in as the dancer. I like the idea, but there's no way it'd make a good 3 or 4 minute video. I've done some basic editing on it and have it at 1;17 length now. Is this type of thing generally accepted or is it looked down on? I'm going to do it regardless of the answer, I want to know if I should bother to distribute it when I'm done?

3) Maybe it's just me, but Divx sucks. Besides Divx what compression is typically used? I would like to use a good looking codec that most people would already have instaled.

4) I know about masking in Permiere, but in order to fit the dance movements there's going to be almost no place where two frames in a row come from the same Lain source video. Because of this I'm thinking I'll have to photoshop each frame together, am I correct or is there a better way?

[Fluxmeister]

1) 352x240 -> 720 x480 (standards!) 640x480 is fine for some conventions, not AX though...

2) Don't enter 'incomplete video concepts' (*) I believe you should put
'partial' videos on your personal website, not into the database.

(*) special case if you compile a few 'partial ideas' into a single video
(I forgot the example , but usually people tolerate this kind of video-mix)

[Fluxmeister]

3) Mpeg1 (use VBR) for distribution... MPEG2 for cons, and if you are lucky enough to have the hard drive space... Huffyuv avis.

Also divx doesn't always suck... but you might want to look into Xvid (I believe this is the name) which is a very impressive way of encoding divx (correct me plz, as I am likely wrong)

4) I am not sure what you mean by

I'll have to photoshop each frame together

... but what you want to do will require the size of the Lain drawings to be
exact, etc... as to avoid jumpiness etc.

[Melfina]

I do believe if you encode at mpeg2 you can convert it to divx and chose your bitrate...which gives divx fairly good quality, and if the sound quality is crummy, im preaty sure you can chose the regular mp3 codec

[CArnesen]

1) What aspect ratio should be used? I'm thinking 320X240 for web distribution and if I ever want to make a video to be shown at a convention that should be 640X480. Am I correct?

Well, for web distribution 320x240 is standard. Broadcast resolution is 720x486 (or 720x480).

2) How much are non-standard videos tolerated? For example, the one I plan on teaching myself video editing with is a Lain/Dance Dance Revolution video where I plan on having in game footage with Lain edited in as the dancer. I like the idea, but there's no way it'd make a good 3 or 4 minute video. I've done some basic editing on it and have it at 1;17 length now. Is this type of thing generally accepted or is it looked down on? I'm going to do it regardless of the answer, I want to know if I should bother to distribute it when I'm done?

A lot of "non-standard" videos have been made that have became hits. It's up to you.

3) Maybe it's just me, but Divx sucks. Besides Divx what compression is typically used? I would like to use a good looking codec that most people would already have instaled.

MPEG1 for the video and MP3 for the audio.

4) I know about masking in Permiere, but in order to fit the dance movements there's going to be almost no place where two frames in a row come from the same Lain source video. Because of this I'm thinking I'll have to photoshop each frame together, am I correct or is there a better way?

Check out Adobe After Effects. It has a lot of features that AMV creators should take advantage of.

[jbone]

MPEG1 for the video and MP3 for the audio.

If you're using MPEG-1 for video, you should use MP2 for the audio.

If you're using DivX/Xvid/whatever for the video, then use MP3 for the audio.