How do you judge contest credibility?

[drewaconclusion]

That's actually not entirely unreasonable if you know the technical reasons why someone would want you to do that. Not to mention it's not that difficult to take your master copy and add 2 seconds of black to the beginning and end. i actually try to do this every time I edit so I don't have to do it afterwards. If you have to re-encode the video for the con, its only a minute or two amount of extra work (if that) so it's really not that bad.

i don't know what software you have that makes it so fast for you

Avisynth:

Code: Select all

video = avisource("mastercopyofvideo.avi")
padding = blackness(video, color=$000000, length=48)
return padding ++ video ++ padding

open in quenc/tmpeg/zarxgui/vdub and then encode. easy.

That's pretty nifty actually. I'll have to hang onto that.

[Rider4Z]

Avisynth:

Code: Select all

video = avisource("mastercopyofvideo.avi")
padding = blackness(video, color=$000000, length=48)
return padding ++ video ++ padding

open in quenc/tmpeg/zarxgui/vdub and then encode. easy.

hug?

[drewaconclusion]

Avisynth:

Code: Select all

video = avisource("mastercopyofvideo.avi")
padding = blackness(video, color=$000000, length=48)
return padding ++ video ++ padding

open in quenc/tmpeg/zarxgui/vdub and then encode. easy.

hug?

[Nya-chan Production]

That's actually not entirely unreasonable if you know the technical reasons why someone would want you to do that. Not to mention it's not that difficult to take your master copy and add 2 seconds of black to the beginning and end. i actually try to do this every time I edit so I don't have to do it afterwards. If you have to re-encode the video for the con, its only a minute or two amount of extra work (if that) so it's really not that bad.

i don't know what software you have that makes it so fast for you

Avisynth:

Code: Select all

video = avisource("mastercopyofvideo.avi")
padding = blackness(video, color=$000000, length=48)
return padding ++ video ++ padding

open in quenc/tmpeg/zarxgui/vdub and then encode. easy.

Considering most of the contests play from PC (might not be true, correct me in that case) - how hard would it be to make ONE pad and then prepare a short playlist "pad + video + pad" that plays continuously for each video?

I suppose a lot shorter than actual total rendering and encoding time of all the editors who have to do it.

Not even mentioning stuff like "I don't keep renders because my HDD is small" or "I kept my renders on a HDD that died on me and now I can't send an older video in, because I'd have to recreate it or render from copy I uploaded to Org"

[Pwolf]

Considering most of the contests play from PC (might not be true, correct me in that case) - how hard would it be to make ONE pad and then prepare a short playlist "pad + video + pad" that plays continuously for each video?

I suppose a lot shorter than actual total rendering and encoding time of all the editors who have to do it.

You should never assume how a contest will be played and it shouldn't be the coordinator's job if the editor is lazy. Again, the padding requirement is usually attributed to a technical issue (but i can also see it as just being used for black space between videos) so just adding the padding before the actual video in a playlist doesn't fix the problem. It would only work that way if the coordinator re-encoded the video with padding.

Not even mentioning stuff like "I don't keep renders because my HDD is small" or "I kept my renders on a HDD that died on me and now I can't send an older video in, because I'd have to recreate it or render from copy I uploaded to Org"

Again, not something a coordinator should even have to think about. Those are personal problems an editor should deal with, not a contest coordinator. Not to mention those are terrible excuses for not putting padding at the beginning and end of a video. The whole argument against a contest credibility because of it is pretty mind blowing for me anyway. I'm having a hard time understanding why something so small and insignificant is even considered an issue. Even without avisynth, all you would have to do is open your master copy (or what ever copy you have available if you lost your master) in your favorite editing program, add 2 seconds to the beginning and end, export. We're talking about a processes that shouldn't take more than 20minutes on a 5 year old computer. If you're waiting until the very last moment to enter a contest and that 20minutes is too long, then you have more problems to worry about then adding some padding

[Nya-chan Production]

Not even mentioning stuff like "I don't keep renders because my HDD is small" or "I kept my renders on a HDD that died on me and now I can't send an older video in, because I'd have to recreate it or render from copy I uploaded to Org"

Again, not something a coordinator should even have to think about. Those are personal problems an editor should deal with, not a contest coordinator. Not to mention those are terrible excuses for not putting padding at the beginning and end of a video. The whole argument against a contest credibility because of it is pretty mind blowing for me anyway. I'm having a hard time understanding why something so small and insignificant is even considered an issue. Even without avisynth, all you would have to do is open your master copy (or what ever copy you have available if you lost your master) in your favorite editing program, add 2 seconds to the beginning and end, export. We're talking about a processes that shouldn't take more than 20minutes on a 5 year old computer. If you're waiting until the very last moment to enter a contest and that 20minutes is too long, then you have more problems to worry about then adding some padding

I agree with most of the stuff, but still, it's a MAJOR HASSLE for NOTHING OF ADDED VALUE |: I mean, sorry, but if it's technical need on coordinator's side, shouldn't there be some... trying to solve this need, instead of enforcing all editors to re-encode their videos repeatedly and every year?
If it's something in the AMV, like... my nick is there, or there is some mistake I overlooked, I have nothing against going through the stuff again, because it adds to the AMV or because you want the judging to be anonymous... but 2s of black in front and after the end?

I could edit that 1 hour (6 yo PC upgraded last year a bit) that it takes me to render (I don't backup my masters, sorry) and encode my 3 minute video. Want to send 3 entries in? 3 hours. And that' ONE contest.

Sorry, I'll usually pass and send to some con that takes my mp4 (some cons even accept Org links these days).

[Seijin_Dinger]

Nya, this is why I dont mind adding the black to the entries. I dont require it in the rules and its not much extra effort on my part, others may feel differently and I cant fault them as thats their contest, and their way of doing things. I dont think that it should hinder the creditability of a contest though, thats like saying that if a contest allows in an advent children set to evanessence video it shouldnt be a creditable contest.

[Castor Troy]

Doesn't adding black give some time for the computer/projector/etc to sync up?

We should have all known this from the VHS days.

[Rider4Z]

Doesn't adding black give some time for the computer/projector/etc to sync up?

We should have all known this from the VHS days.

i figured adding the black was to give the projector a chance to fade in before the video starts.

why is the black required by so many conventions anyway? (i was in choir in high school, not the A/V department.)

[Scintilla]

I always thought the black leader was to make sure there would be no sync problems with the Netstream MPEG playback card...?