AWA 2010 - Pro downloads active; Expo 4 days left, August 20

[kholaras]

We will not be mastering DVD video discs, and therefore won't have iso's available. The individual files will be made available as .mpeg's and, as mentioned time and resources permitting, H.264 mp4 to either download yourself or have us burn on provided media. This year we are going to transition to a software rendered solution with the Netstreams as backup, with the awards in main still played off of mastered DVDs. As such our first priority is to convert all entries to suitable MPEG2 formats since that is the lowest common denominator. We'll verify all videos against the Media Player Classic Home Cinema standalone filters, VLC, and the Netstream cards. I can double check which splitters and other filters are on the DirectShow side of things when I get home if anyone's interested.

When we use the Netstreams, we're using them in DirectShow mode and it absolutely enforces aspect ratio. As a matter of fact, it does very weird things to videos without an aspect flagged, so all videos will be tagged either way as appropriate if not submitted flagged. We have a 4:3 aspect screen, and the projector is setup accordingly. 16:9 anamorphic content will be soft letterboxed by our playback solution, be it Netstream or softcodec. If you do not wish or are uncomfortable encoding in this format then the alternative is to hard letterbox the content yourself and encode for 4:3 display. Either format is equally valid. Anamorphic support was included a few years ago at the request of various editors once our playback solutions permitted it. For reference, anyone using a Netstream can try out my DirectShow enabled player here. It's very similar in layout and usage to the venerable MCIPlay. Some simple instruction pages are available here. It won't work with an H+ card, unless you do some hackish things to get DirectShow support working, and even then the card was never really intended for use like that.

As for black leader/trailers, its always a nice thing to have before AND after. Encoders and playback options can sometimes do weird things with very abrupt starts and stops, plus it's just a little jarring for the audience.

[Scintilla]

... So, we now have no way of watching the contest on our nice big television set.

Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.

And to think we had been thinking of hosting an AWA Pro viewing party, too.

[LantisEscudo]

... So, we now have no way of watching the contest on our nice big television set.

Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.

And to think we had been thinking of hosting an AWA Pro viewing party, too.

Western Digital has its HD TV Live, which works quite nicely. Composite, Component, and HDMI, and plays back almost every format I've thrown at it (Indeo and RealMedia are the only failures I've encountered). It has a couple annoying quirks (its OSD in particular), but nothing that I've found deal-breaking for general watching.

[Brad]

... So, we now have no way of watching the contest on our nice big television set.

Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.

And to think we had been thinking of hosting an AWA Pro viewing party, too.

Do you have a laptop with VGA/DVI-out and a nice set of speakers? Or better yet, a laptop with HDMI out? Or how about an XBox 360 or PS3? Or could you move one of your desktop PC's into the television room for an evening along with some speakers? If any of these are an option, then you're fine. You don't need to buy anything special. But yes, there are definitely specific, cheap, media-center PC's out there that work great.

This is the solution we've been using for years. I honestly can't recall the last time we needed to actually use a set-top DVD player for anything, at all.

[HalOfBorg]

Has anyone yet invented a set-top (why do we still use this term? who still makes TV sets that you can actually put big items on top of?) media player that can hook up to your TV set via the standard component, DVI, or HDMI and play media files in a variety of formats off of a USB jump/flash/pen/thumb drive? I've been wanting a gadget like that for years.

The Patriot Box Office. I haven't tried one, but I WANT one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... t%20player

I play files I DL off of thumb drives through my DVD player's USB slot, though it is VERY touchy about audio.

[kholaras]

The WD series players (their older one is running about $100, 2 usb ports and no network, newer Live with network support at $120, and a mini player with some reduced features for a little less than either) are pretty damned good from my understanding. The chip under the hood giving it life is made by our good old friends Sigma Designs (it's why they stopped making PC based goods. They abandoned us for the settop market).

Realtek has a line of chips in some other players like the Asus O!Play and Seagate's player. All the players have some benefits and downfalls. The WD players won't give you a menu when playing iso files (actually, can't remember if they'll play iso's at all...I know they'll play vob rips), which is the biggest bit off the top of my head. The higher end players (like the Popcorn Hours) even support the addition of a Blu-ray ROM drive and will function as a player, but are a fair bit more expensive and are a pain to get ahold of.

All the information you could want and more at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=39

And yea, I apologize. I know ya'll especially were proponents of the mastered discs so you could watch them on your tv.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I bought some crappy D-Link STB a while back that can't hold a candle to Lantis' solution. I'm currently using a HTPC I built with a media portal front-end. I think we're derailed the AWA topic though...

[Brad]

Final point about the whole playback issue. If all else fails and you absolutely can't come up with a good solution for a media center connected to your TV, you could always author your own DVD. Doesn't have to be special, and sure the quality may suffer, but if the viewing experience on your TV is important enough to you, that's a worst-case scenario solution.

[Kitsuner]

We will not be mastering DVD video discs, and therefore won't have iso's available.

Does this mean I shouldn't mail you blank DVDs this year? The rules say that's still an option, but sometimes obsolete stuff gets left in by mistake.

[dokidoki]

We will not be mastering DVD video discs, and therefore won't have iso's available.

Does this mean I shouldn't mail you blank DVDs this year? The rules say that's still an option, but sometimes obsolete stuff gets left in by mistake.

The sentence after the one you quoted says, "The individual files will be made available as .mpeg's and, as mentioned time and resources permitting, H.264 mp4 to either download yourself or have us burn on provided media."