Master Archive Fundraising

Org Profile · Post by **VicBond007** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:34 am

And while you're all in the giving mood, I need money for a better CPU and a new SVHS-deck. Trust me, it's for the good of everyone.

Pat, you have a DVD burner. Get bulk DVDs and start burning. It'll be better off in the long run because when one of those precious drives fails, you'll still have hard copies sitting on the shelf. Plus you could just send discs to cons instead of whole machines thus removing the whole "UPS-dropped my CPU off the plane" factor. 600GB worth of DVD-Rs is $400. Considerably more reasonable.

jonmartensen · Post by **jonmartensen** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 9:59 am

The new archive would be twice that size.

iserlohn · Post by **iserlohn** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 10:36 am

jonmartensen wrote:The new archive would be twice that size.

So it comes to $800 worth of DVD-R's. Still less than half as expensive. Oh wait - he only needs to back up the current archive and wipe the HD's to reuse - only $400, my mistake, less than a quarter as much. I side with Vic on this - it is not our job to buy other peoples' hardware when it's for personal use (as Quu has stated that his master archive is). From the description, this computer is nothing more than a giant box for keeping things after the cons are over, implying that it's not even the machine used for compiling contest tapes. Quu does all of this voluntarily - it is his choice to take on as much as he does and as a result his burdon to cover the gear requirements (although it would be to his benefit to register otakuvideo as a home business so that all the gear would be deductable).

Remember folks, this is a hobby. If anybody else came on the org asking for donations to buy a new computer, they'd be told to get a job and start saving. Worse, Quu's involved with 10+ conventions' contests now, and while I have no doubt that he is unbiased in how he handles entries, accepting donations (esp. if they are publically credited) could lead to perceptions of "hey my video's glitched and soandsowhodonated's isn't - they got better treatment as a result." While it may not be the case, it's another excuse to point fingers.

Therefore, I say buy some DVD-R's and get burning. Keep them in some amray cases on the shelf so that there's no chance of peeling from a binder, and you'll be fine. Also try to keep them organized by creator name or contest for easy access, and a nice database for effective organization.

Quu · Post by **Quu** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 10:44 am

I am considering backing up the master archive to optical media... but there is several issues

One... i still need to have a master file server for the back of the contests and for syncronizing with remote mirrors of the archive... And for syncing to the travel computers

two... DVD-R are easily damanged when handled alot.l.. succh as traveling to a convnetion. I would consider optical media for backup purposes only... They are DVD-Data not DVD-Video since my quality settings are 1.5-2x maximum DVD spec... I tend to turn the quality to 11.

three... burning that amount of DVDs (not even going to consider CD-R) would be hedious... I won't have time to both burn the discs and manage the contest tech side. 1120 gigs is about 266 discs (rounding down to compensate for mis sized files not maximizing the disc potential)... 266 discs is about $400 and 200 hours or 40 days worth of burning (I have a job so could only burn for about 5 hours a day). I can afford to lose 40 days of time in janurary/feb... but I am going to run out of space long before that

so yes... the making an optical backup is planned... but I still need the master archive for convnetion purposes... and drives fail... which is why I use raid-5 and keep mirrors of the data all over the place.

Bloodyfäng · Post by **Bloodyfäng** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:43 am

Hmm. I was under the impression you needed the money before AWA, but after seeing your comment about the tip jar at Corbo Bash I see I need to read more carefully. Could I just give you the money at AWA? It won't look like a too much of a bribe 8)

~mawkish_fool

mckeed · Post by **mckeed** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 12:37 pm

well....maybe someone can offer to help burn DVD's for you as well? I got a burner and would be willing to help out.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 1:25 pm

As I've stated before, who cares if its for personal use or what. If he wants to ask people for money, then he should! If people want to give him money, then they should! No one is being forced to give anything.

MCWagner · Post by **MCWagner** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 1:34 pm

Hey Quu...

Who had "two days" for the office pool on how long it would take you to get flamed for this? I was thinking it would be closer to a matter of hours.

Org Profile · Post by **Vlad G Pohnert** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 2:24 pm

I have to agree with Patrick about having the archive on a Server.. Quite frankly just the upkeep, sorting and maintaining it as it grows is a huge untertaking and having it all over the place on DVDs will add huge amount of hours to the job... Besides, you would have to duplicate every DVD to have a backup since if one goes, so does the videos on it!

I actually suprised that since Quu is trying his hardest at preseve the art and making sure everyones videos are avaiable for future cons to enjoy (Lots of older videos have been lost to us already)... I can surly vouch that this task is extreamly time consumming and all that's being asked here is "donations" to help with some upkeep... I myself have already spend a sum on systesm for the contest/cons I'm doing in an effort to bring the best quality of videos to the audiance, and even at that I'll will end up helping with some financial aid for the new server....

Ironically the whole carrot ideas is funded by donations as well so the whole concept should not be a suprise here.... I can see people NOT wanting to donate to creators personally since there is no benefit there to anyone elses videos, but the archive benefits everyone and the various contests and cons that are run from it and not just one person...

Vlad

madmallard · Post by **madmallard** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 3:45 pm

VicBond007 wrote:And while you're all in the giving mood, I need money for a better CPU and a new SVHS-deck. Trust me, it's for the good of everyone.

quu wrote:how does this effect you? Directly... very little... since I can assum most of you don't know who I am or what I do. . . . In fact, the master archive will probably have the least effect on all of you, since it stays at home. But... i use it as a master repository of the videos that all of you submit... the high quality MPEG-2 master i either make or you submit. .

I sure didn't see him say its for the good of everyone. He said quite clearly it affects most people, meaning most creators and most fans, very little.
He didn't ask for money once on this post, he asked for suggestions on fund raising. Not for technical advice to solve the problem, which we can assume based on bulk experience that,yes, he has explored -alot- of options. . .
those being said, who does this affect most? Convention contest organisers. Everywhere and everyone that has a mirror of this . . .beast. . uses it in the entertainment of fans at cons, or helps make even more mirrors for anyone who has a computer sufficient to handle it. The equipment records, stores, renders, processes, playlists/jukeboxes, and basically administrates AMVs. Having all these things in one box, or two (one to record and one to store) drastically improves the economy of time in putting together a con's amv contest. it allows videos to be uploaded or mailed physically. It allows the creator to worry about the video and let the convention, if it chose to, deal with compression.

So after Convention Contest Organisers, it affects Creators who Enter Contests. after that it affects non-entry creators and fans about the same.

Do you see any fancy video card in that setup quu listed? do you even see an mpeg2/4 card?

The current master archive is connected to a Point Of Sale b&w monitor in quu;s basement, with no playback ability on its own whatsoever. The fanciest thing in it other than the hard drives is a 10/100/1000 card(its it that one, right?) to facilitate copying the archive to other computers faster.

In fact, i don't think of all the pc's he's got that hes got anythign faster than a gigahertz processor.

So I don't think we need to explore wether this is superfluous or not.

Pat, you have a DVD burner. Get bulk DVDs and start burning. It'll be better off in the long run because when one of those precious drives fails, you'll still have hard copies sitting on the shelf. Plus you could just send discs to cons instead of whole machines thus removing the whole "UPS-dropped my CPU off the plane" factor. 600GB worth of DVD-Rs is $400. Considerably more reasonable.

And as long as we;re looking at cost, lets also consider the functionality. for $400 and a butt load of time, you can archive everything to solid state. it can't move, and its volatile to handling, and it can't be indexed or copied over again without a buttload of time.

or for $1800, you have an active solution with indexing and archiving tools that can copy itself to something else in half (10/100) or a fraction (400,1000) of the time, is redundant for backup, can be moved and handled slighltly more usefully, and can be -upgraded- when technology demands.

AnimeMusicVideos.org

Master Archive Fundraising

I need a new laptop, but...