Don't give crappy a** ratings if a video doesn't deserve it.

[Nappy]

I make videos because sometimes normal pr0n just isn't enough. :|

Real pr0n just doesn't have enuff moneyshots in a short time frame, much less to some good music...

[dbz_doomrider]

O.O!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[alternatefutures]

See, you get this mad when someone gives you an ovviously deflated review, but where's the outrage when someone gives you the mindless "10 - j00 R 1337 d00d!" rating? Really, these people are far more prevalent and make trying to figure out what videos are worthy of downloading based on ratings completely futile. I've asked people to rate my videos before I get a very empty feeling when I see those kinds of things as a result.

With scales, I try to give out a 5 as average, but my rating for video quality and sound is different because honestly there's only so much that can be done. Unless a guy goes out and invents a lossless codec with a 100:1 compression scheme that is imbedded into the file so it can play universally on any computer just for the video or commisions special full resolution HDTV footage of the series he's working on, most videos are as good as you're going to get. You also have to take into consideration codecs and distribution methods. Sure, DivX looks nicer than MPEG-1 at low bitrates, but I know a lot of people who download DivX videos and can't play them smoothly because of the CPU, losing audio synch and making watching AMVs nearly impossible, so I don't knock people who distribute in MPEG-1 because "DivX would have looked so much better." So my grading here is a lot more generous.

The most dangerous thing to rate honestly, I've found, is effort. You can write an informative review down the line and give out twos and threes left and right and the maker will generally take it pretty well, but give someone any less than a 7 in effort and they're likely to bite your head off because they spent all of last night editing it. Hey buddy, I spent six months on a video, I'm qualified to give you a 2 for effort! Honestly though, we can only grade with what is given to us. So if your video has a lot of rough edges or scenes that stretch out way too long or long sections where you just let the series play naturally, I'm going to think there wasn't a lot of work put into it. To everyone, if you really did put a lot of time into something and it's not obvious, that's what the comments section is for! Feel free to write the entire history of your video's editing process. The thoughtful, honest reviewers tend to read it and it may save you a point or two on this category alone. If you spent a month on your video, you can spend an extra twenty minutes giving a solid description on it.

[Xanthrax]

I'm practically at the point where my scores don't really mean anything at all. I mean, I have a hugely complex method of working ratings out for any given AMV, but my typical opinion proper doesn't really lend well to the numerical scale seeing as I write mostly of constructive criticism regardless of the video's quality.

I have been called harsh on more than one occasion, and I figure that it tends to be far more due to the scores than the opinion proper, seeing as they can have a direct effect, whereas the opinion is just a whole bunch of words if you don't want to bother reading it or don't agree with it.

[trythil]

Lipsync. Again, very easy to match mouth movements with words. If you have a paint program and an hour, you can do mouth-matching very easily. But does the body language of the character go with the words and the mouth movements? Does it make sense given the content of the scene (character placement, additional characters, lighting, facial expression, colorization, and so forth)?

Agreed...to a point. The only thing I'll dispute is that you don't even need a paint program in most cases. The secret is getting the mouth to close JUST before the syllable ends. And the trick to extending mouth movements to fit is to repeat the correct clips to drag the movement out to the right time without slowing down your footage. Really, it isn't hard, unless the person's speaking really fast. And it starts to get VERY tricky when dealing with a character's body movements while they're speaking, or a zoomed scene of someone talking (I just finished a doozy of a lipsynch video, my first attempt at it).

Well, what I meant was that you basically take overlays of mouths and just paste them in at the correct frames (with some buffer time to make the mouth open and close correctly). I did this for "always"; it took me inside of an hour to do the four sync sequences (two of which ended up cut).

The sequences sucked, but that was because of my incompetence, not the method

[trythil]

[
Well, what I meant was that you basically take overlays of mouths and just paste them in at the correct frames (with some buffer time to make the mouth open and close correctly). I did this for "always"; it took me inside of an hour to do the four sync sequences (two of which ended up cut).

The sequences sucked, but that was because of my incompetence, not the method

Fuck it. What I SHOULD have written somewhere in that paragraph was that a paint program can make the job easier, especially if you can grab frame numbers easier than you can play back edited and re-composited footage in real time (which is the case for me; my computer simply can't handle multi-layer composites at 29.97fps I think it's lucky to manage .2997 )

[genestarwind21122]

This make things clearer now for the most part. As you can tell Gene Starwind is one to be short tempered and ready to start an argument right away. So probably could have seen this coming anyway I understand about making videos. Yes I do them for fun, but yet I'm a competetor. I like competetion at the same time when I make these video I have fun and put tons of effort into them. I probably I know that you guys put a lot of effort into your videos as well. And propbably do have fun making these videos. Most of you that propbably that has responded to this post probably have been working on videos longer than I have. It's been 10 months since I made my first video. So I think you can still consider me a newbe to this. I should really take my own advice that I gave to all of the underclassmen in high school. Which was "Stay calm, Stay cool, and live life to the fullest." Thanks for everything.

[dwchang]

This make things clearer now for the most part. As you can tell Gene Starwind is one to be short tempered and ready to start an argument right away. So probably could have seen this coming anyway I understand about making videos. Yes I do them for fun, but yet I'm a competetor. I like competetion at the same time when I make these video I have fun and put tons of effort into them. I probably I know that you guys put a lot of effort into your videos as well. And propbably do have fun making these videos. Most of you that propbably that has responded to this post probably have been working on videos longer than I have. It's been 10 months since I made my first video. So I think you can still consider me a newbe to this. I should really take my own advice that I gave to all of the underclassmen in high school. Which was "Stay calm, Stay cool, and live life to the fullest." Thanks for everything.

Yeah keep thinking that way...at the same time, posts like this don't make it seem like you understand this....

As for doing this a short amount of time. I've been doing this for about a year...maybe 14 months, so time has nothing to do with being a n00b or whatever. Just keep at it...given I'm sort of implying I'm good...which is an overstatement if anything .

[genestarwind21122]

One thing with music videos. It is in the eyes of the watcher. There is really nothing you can do about it if they hate the anime or if they hate the song. Can I please just end this post now. Phade request to lock post.

[MOD467: Thread locked due to originator's request.]