Second Instrumentality: Around The World in 80 Minutes

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 12:14 am

Oh, I full-well realize the deficiencies of cable. Unfortunately, I don't have any options right now (I'm already in a 12-month contract with a cable provider, and have had their most basic package for about 4 months now) - besides, I'm yet to learn of a non-cable, non-dial-up provider around here. There may be DSL, but I'm yet to hear of it. And a T1/T3 line would require some kind of an 'industrial' solution around here (laying cable?) and is way out of my financial reach.

I think if I decide to run some server, I'll have my brother pull some strings among his contacts and buy me some webspace; but that is also out of my financial reach, for now.

***

I haven't got the access yet, and my computer's been down for a couple of days (thank you Windows crash).

So for now, the prospects of me running something are shady at best.

rose4emily · Post by **rose4emily** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:43 am

Individuals can't afford T1 in the first place (well, maybe really wealthy individuals...). It does also require special wiring to be run from the provider to the customer as well, thus involving a considreable up-front cost.

I just had my little rant about cable because the ISP I have to go through back home just decided that no servers of any kind, even of a non-commercial nature, can be run across their lines. There's a three-month period of inaccessibility that will really help me run the big software project I was planning to enter full-force at the same point in time that I'll be unable to administer it's web interface. It looks like I'll have to re-think that forum administration software I had just started to configure.

Yet they still collect their monthly bill.

ooshna · Post by **ooshna** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 9:25 pm

Are there any Arab cities not taken?

angelx03 · Post by **angelx03** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 9:28 pm

Uh, I thought this project was dead.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 9:33 pm

Hey, it doesn't have to be dead. I just don't have the technical resources to host an FTP for the project; anyone who does is welcome to pick this up. I'd help, in fact, and make a vid if I find footage to use.

Tsunami Jones · Post by **Tsunami Jones** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:53 am

ooshna wrote:Are there any Arab cities not taken?

Yes. I think only one part has actually been called is the Yokohama/japan section. I know several others were trying to decide on some things, like Muyo with the chinese part, but I don't think it was set in stone (although I'm not entirely sure on this).

angelx03 wrote:Uh, I thought this project was dead

We're just missing a head . . .

Otohiko wrote:anyone who does is welcome to pick this up

If we can't find anyone who has an ftp, we could just have everyone call and complete their segments and upload their segment to the org until someone has the resources to compile everything together into one big project file.

Org Profile · Post by **Otohiko** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:58 am

Actually, the main problem for me is my upload/download caps; otherwise, I can theoretically run an FTP server... Although I really can't afford to get me a cap-less plan at the moment.

But if people would like to coordinate ideas and make separate videos under the project umbrella, that would certainly be good.

In any case, I really doubt I could put it together in the same way rose4emily seems to be doing it with the first Instrumentality right now; I'm sure I'd be able to come up with something though.

BTW, I'm also interested in Arabic cities. Aside from the Bebop movie's one Moroccan street scene though, I haven't found much of use.

ooshna · Post by **ooshna** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 9:06 am

Give me the most amount of bandwidth this project will take and I will tell you if I can host the ftp

rose4emily · Post by **rose4emily** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 7:12 pm

The bandwidth wouldn't be so much of a problem for the sake of collecting the videos, as it is for sharing them. This is because most broadband connections are asymmetrical - meaning that they're much faster for downloading (when people are uploading to your server) than for uploading (when people are downloading from your server). Bandwidth caps, if your ISP account has them, tend to follow a similar pattern.

Basically, you shouldn't have too much of a problem with collecting the videos if you have a Cable or DSL connection - but you've seen firsthand the slowness inherent in trying to download off of a server on a standard cable connection.

I actually wouldn't mind stepping back up to this project once Animasia is done and submitted - on the condition that no one expects me to do the time-consuming compilation portions until the summer rolls around (because that's probably the first reasonable opportunity I'll have for that sort of work). I also won't be producing any videos for this one, as I have neither time, nor ideas.

If I do resume my place as the manager of this project, however, technical limitations will dicatate that the other editors be "flying blind" in terms of seing each others' works unless they find other ways to transfer preview files amongst themselves. Once I clean up all of the (very large) files involved in compiling the first Instrumentality project, I'll be in good shape to recieve video submissions - I just don't have the upload bandwidth to effectively re-distribute them to other group members.

I should also note that a lot of the technical issues that took so long to iron out in the first Instrumentaliy project can be completely avoided this time around, and that I'll be sure to make use of this knowledge if I resume project management, or to pass it on if someone with more time and a better hosting situation wants the job.

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I can add that I've a back-burner software project for private file p2p file transfers (without any search or tracking functionality - so you'd have to manually trade IPs and passcodes, this being considered primarily as a security issue) based on UDP packets and the use of non-standard ports that should work much faster than a typical HTTP/FTP setup for this sort of thing. I can't, however, make any garuntees as to how long it will be before this thing is done.

rose4emily · Post by **rose4emily** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 7:24 pm

I should add that there's also a disk space consideration:

The first Instrumentality project currently occupies more than 30 GiB of disk space, most of which is consumed by Huffman/VOB submissions, sets of PNG images used for titles/narratives/intros/credits, uncompressed audio, encoded copies of each video, narrative, and "other" element of the project's tracklist, test renders (which I keep around as a reference of what does and doesn't work with the encoding process), partial compiled renders (each AMV segment, with its title and narrative) and full compiled renders (each completed segment, composed of the partial renders + intros/end credits). There's a lot of small-files to take care of, too (credits lists, narrative scripts, shell scripts, notes and examples of encoding options, records of the command history that I keep around as references I look at when I've left something vague in the notes, source images used for compositing elements of the titles, credits, and narratives, the composited images themselves....

And that's after I cleaned out all the old "preview" versions of everything.

In short, you have to consider hard disk space as well as bandwidth to assess whether you have the resources for working with something this big. You should also keep backups (note the plural usage - I've learned the hard way that sometimes one backup isn't enough), so you'll want an external hard drive and/or a lot of CDs. The directory structure can get a little scary at compile-time, too - that's one that I'm dealing with right now as I'm pulling together all the pieces of Animasia.