Important A/V-Tech question for AMV Organizers!

[rubyeye]

This is a general inquiry to all AMV organizers:

We just completed our first meeting/judging for the upcoming AKON Video Events Contests, but we've run into some "technical difficulties" we need to resolve before the convention. This is the first year for us to (finally) go completely digital with our contests (no VHS or CD/DVD playback). However, one of the issues we are facing has to do with conflicts in the playlist function of the media player we are using - VideoLAN. Other issues, like interlacing, color saturation, etc. stem from the various formats/codecs people use for their videos.


I understand that other conventions have been presenting their contests fully digital for some years now and we are curious to know what kind of video player, settings, and system setup you use for your contests? If you could share this information, it may help us to resolve the problems we are facing.

I don't remember which conventions have been doing the full-on digital format but perhaps Vlad G Pohnert (Anime Evolution) or MCWagner (AWA) could share what they know. Anyone else from other conventions, please feel free to help me out here.


If you are uncomfortable posting here, please EMAIL me or PM me and we can discuss the issue further.

Thank you,


~ Dann

[BasharOfTheAges]

While i've yet to run a contest, I have reciently been made aware that VLC sucks as a media player and should only be used as a last resort (mostly because of it's penchat for making any inperfections or irregualrities in the encoding VERY apparent on playback). This knowledge has been a bit of a shocker since i've used it for years and told others to do the same for just as long. I'd suggest media player classic with the proper codecs / ffdshow installed.

[Kalium]

I'm led to believe that the largest cons use NetStream cards, and thus transcode everything to MPEG2.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

I use a netstream and enbcode to Mpeg2 as mentioned... Out of 12 contests that I have now played in the pastr 5 years, I have yet yo have even the slightest hickup or having to use my backup computer...

I use two shuttles with a netstream card totaly dedicated to playback and AMV proceessing (nothing else loaded)

Vlad

[rubyeye]

Appreciate the help guys, I had also suggested we simply use MPC and install CCCP for smoother playback. So we will be doing some more testing to work out the bugs.

Thanks for your help.

~ Dann