The Otakon 2010 Thread (OK now panic)

[Honou_Miko]

2) There is no maximum time limit this year

OH SHIT I THINK I JUST CAME.

Subitting my magnum opus, most definitely (especially if I can figure out how to make Vegas render decently in mpeg... my file quality was noticeably so-so compared to the others last year, hooray for my self-taught-ness). Was going to do a video to a different series this year, just so that it's not like "oh god, here's another DN video..."

...but I can't NOT take advantage of this. What do you think are the odds that this rule won't go through?? Before I totally go apeshit getting excited over this (too late honestly).

[VicBond007]

OH SHIT I THINK I JUST CAME.

Subitting my magnum opus, most definitely (especially if I can figure out how to make Vegas render decently in mpeg... my file quality was noticeably so-so compared to the others last year, hooray for my self-taught-ness). Was going to do a video to a different series this year, just so that it's not like "oh god, here's another DN video..."

...but I can't NOT take advantage of this. What do you think are the odds that this rule won't go through?? Before I totally go apeshit getting excited over this (too late honestly).

It most likely will "go through" since I'm just waiting for our lawyer to look at them and the only rules that could be shot down are ones that can get us into trouble.

Just remember, the longer your video is, the harder it's going to be to get into the contest since you have a lot more time to bore the pre-screeners

[SecondChild]

Did your entry last year make finals? If not, then you're welcome to resubmit, but if you didn't make the cut last year then things might not be any better for you this year. If it did make finals, I would not submit it again this year. There's no rule against it (though I probably should make one) but the prescreeners will most likely downrate it in the interest of keeping the contest fresh.

It did not make it to the finals with this vid. However, I made the cut the year before last with a video that I felt was inferior to this one. I don't know if the competition was too tough last year, or if I was just unfortunate enough to have been near last in the queue, and everyone was tired and bored and cranky, or what, but I do believe it is vastly superior to my vid from the previous year, so I may resubmit it.

That being said, I'd rather submit a new vid, so I'll start working on one... NOW. ^_^

[Honou_Miko]

Not sure if this question is best here, but I'll give it a shot - I played my video in Windows Media Player, and I didn't notice any interlacing. I did, however, notice it in VLC. I'm guessing (I really know very little about the technical details of everything) this is something that a media player can correct - or not correct - upon playback.

Will I need to worry about the interlacing showing up on the big screen, should it make it to the contest? Or does the monitor/software used there get rid of it? Just wondering if I have to learn some more for tweaking purposes (in which case I will look elsewhere as I don't want to bombard this thread with technical questions), or if I'm okay to send it in as it is.

[VicBond007]

We actually play everything interlaced, so that's why in the rules it says "interlaced video is fine". WMP might be connecting to a codec that is set to deinterlace on the fly, whereas VLC only deinterlaces when you tell it to. If your video is interlaced PROPERLY then there won't be a problem at all. The problem arises when people work with interlaced video, but adjust the clip speed or resizes footage. This screws up the field alignment and can't really be fixed. In this case, if your video looks fine in WMP (meaning no jagged edges or bizarre fields popping up anywhere) then your entry will play just fine.

It's fine to ask questions here. That way one person asks and everyone gets the answers.

[Honou_Miko]

Ahhh, great, thanks.

I've been working with raw DVD files... but it doesn't seem like I've run into issues with clip speed or resizing. I'm rendering to the preset DVD NTSC... I mean, *I* think it looks okay, but I could be totally missing something, so just let me know if I'm doing anything asinine. XD

[Angelyco]

I uploaded my video about 2 weeks ago, can you confirm that it was received?

Thanks!

[VicBond007]

I uploaded my video about 2 weeks ago, can you confirm that it was received?

Thanks!

If you see it in your FTP directory, then it has been received. The FTP server is not remote. In fact it's 2 feet away from me.

Confirmations will go out once the video has been tested, and I won't even begin testing videos until the rules become official and go up on the Otakon site. I just heard back today that everything is a go, so hopefully we'll get the official rules online soon. Last year they went live on April 11th, and that was with the con 2 weeks earlier than it is this year. Hopefully things will get posted even earlier, giving y'all plenty more time to complain about the deadline

[VicBond007]

Bump for first-post updates.

[VicBond007]

The AMV FTP server will be down intermittently between today (Sunday May 9th) and Tuesday, May 11th. I'm having some work done and things will need to be moved around so the server/FTP signup page will be unreachable while I'm moving the network equipment. Once moved to it's temporary location, it will be brought back up, so outages will be minimal. Even if the FTP server is down, the server hosting the submission form will still be running.