GloryQuestor wrote:afaik, it's only supposed to apply to Pro because the Pro contest burns videos to DVDs for judging, and those DVDs use titlecards to identify the video. It's much faster for them to put the DVD copies together with 2 seconds of black space so they don't have to worry if a video will be cut off at the ends when they go to put it together -- the less they have to worry about, the faster the DVDs are sent out and the less errors to deal with come display time.
Unlike Pro, Masters and Expo do not necessarily need to follow this requirement because they are usually seen in the VAT room or by individuals (judges) without added titlecards--the only videos that would have added titles would be ones that won awards. While it doesn't hurt to do so, it's probably not as important for those as it would be for the redistributable Pro contest.
That's essentially the situation. Even then it's kind of a leave-over from when submissions were all on tape and you had to leave at least 30 seconds of black from the front of the tape, to avoid distortions that cropped up on VHS at the very beginning of the tape, and to avoid "crash to blue" that looks so crass when you just cut things off right after the video ends.
As for editing the rules, yeah that's essentially the situation. The real problem is that the rules rewrites are done by me, and not my tech crew, who would actually know all the reasons behind the requirements. Believe me, it's better if I just cut & paste than try to derive this stuff from first principles.
Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.
