outdated guides...

Zaphod_Beeblebrox · Post by **Zaphod_Beeblebrox** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 8:57 pm

I know this may sound a little arrogant of me to say, but isn't vicbond's guide to using DVD footage a bit outdated now? I mean newbs looking for easy answers will tend to go to the rather than Read <a href=http://www.a-m-v.org/guides/avtech31/>ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides</a> and it seems silly that the guide is still working from old versions of programs like AVS, which quite often causes problems with people leaving in lines of code to load plugins and stuff like that, and also it's using DVD2AVI rather than DGindex, i know this is a small detail but seeing as how DGindex has several helpful little features (like creating an AVS file for you), it seems like it should be up to date.

Also while i'm on the subject, I think we need an updated version of Quu's guide to working with game footage, it's all very well and good, but isn't really all that in-depth, and contains some glaring omissions, such as anything on ripping from PS2 games, i know there's stickies at the top of the forum, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the guides does it?

*dons flame-retardent gear*

Am I alone in this?

Zaphod_Beeblebrox · Post by **Zaphod_Beeblebrox** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:12 pm

Sorry for the double post, but upon further reading i notice:

In VicBond's guide he actually recomends converting to DivX before taking clips from your episodes, rather than just taking you clips straight from the filtered AVS files, furthermore he says nothing of the awsome filtering power of AVS and to cap it all off doesn't even mention the "bait and switch" method of editing which many people (including myself) rely on.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:37 pm

Zaphod_Beeblebrox wrote:I know this may sound a little arrogant of me to say, but isn't vicbond's guide to using DVD footage a bit outdated now?

Yes, it is. Actually, just about all guides on this site are outdated, to some extent.

Zaphod_Beeblebrox wrote:Sorry for the double post, but upon further reading i notice:

In VicBond's guide he actually recomends converting to DivX before taking clips from your episodes, rather than just taking you clips straight from the filtered AVS files, furthermore he says nothing of the awsome filtering power of AVS and to cap it all off doesn't even mention the "bait and switch" method of editing which many people (including myself) rely on.

Lots of people find that method too difficult to understand or use.

I don't know why, but that's that.

Zaphod_Beeblebrox · Post by **Zaphod_Beeblebrox** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:49 pm

trythil wrote:Actually, just about all guides on this site are outdated, to some extent.

True, but still, VicBond's guide is so outdated as to be causing some people to get confused and ask questions that are already answered in other guides that are less obviously labelled (EADFAG, for example).

trythil wrote:Lots of people find that method too difficult to understand or use

Thats as may be but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be covered, I don't understand audio compression but it's still in EADFAG explained in ful, and besides, people running on somewhat outdated systems (like myself

) actually can't use Huffy clips to edit and therefore need another method, if i hadn't gone to EADFAG before VicBond's guide i'd be really confused, and probably still editing with fansub footage...

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Tue Nov 22, 2005 11:34 pm

Zaphod_Beeblebrox wrote:
trythil wrote:Lots of people find that method too difficult to understand or use
Thats as may be but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be covered, I don't understand audio compression but it's still in EADFAG explained in ful, and besides, people running on somewhat outdated systems (like myself :roll:) actually can't use Huffy clips to edit and therefore need another method, if i hadn't gone to EADFAG before VicBond's guide i'd be really confused, and probably still editing with fansub footage...

So...you want to do what about it?

Update VicBond's guide for him?

It's an alternative method. I don't like it, and I've made that clear many times, but hey, oh well. If people get tired of it, they'll use something different.

I used to care about these sorts of things until I realized it wasn't worth the time. You might want to do the same.

Keeper of Hellfire · Post by **Keeper of Hellfire** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 3:39 am

Zaphod_Beeblebrox wrote:... and besides, people running on somewhat outdated systems (like myself ) actually can't use Huffy clips to edit and therefore need another method,...

What's wrong with outdated systems and HuffYUV? As I made my first AMV, I used a 1.2 GHz Duron with 256 MB SDRAM and 5 GB HD-space available. The footage that I needed was spread over estimated 2/3 of the 26 episodes of the series. What method else could I have used instead making clips? At this time I had read EADFAG (the old version) and VicBond's Guide, and I did it different from both guides.

Guides will always be a bit outdated because
a) The development of the programs is fast, so the guides will always trail behind.
b) Writing guides is really time consuming - time you can't invest in making AMV's.
c) If people have found a method which works for them they mostly don't change it only because there are new program versions released. That's valid for the people who have written the guides too.

So if you aren't satisfied with the existing guides because they are outdated and too difficult, why don't you write better ones instead complaining?

Zaphod_Beeblebrox · Post by **Zaphod_Beeblebrox** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:31 am

Ok, i can see i am alone, but whatever, i don't care that much if the guide gets updated or not, it was just an idea, and now that i look at it i realise that saying something was stupid, but in my defense, it was about 3 in the morning here...not that that makes that much difference...

In short: I'll just keep my mouth shut.

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:59 pm

You're not alone, and don't apologize for opening your mouth. Retorts like "Ok, they're outdated, what are YOU going to do about it" are completely inappropriate. In the first case, you ARE doing something about it, you're bringing this to people's attention. In the second place, obviously if you knew what you were doing, you'd have no reason to consult a guide and therefore no cause to even realize something was outdated - or care, which I daresay is the general attitude around here.

The good spirit in which those guides were created doesn't seem to exist anymore. That's a shame.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:21 pm

DriftRoot wrote:You're not alone, and don't apologize for opening your mouth. Retorts like "Ok, they're outdated, what are YOU going to do about it" are completely inappropriate.

No, they are not. If you see something wrong and you think it is worth fixing, you should be thinking of ways to fix it.

That's the philosophy behind this. It works.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:46 pm

I'd like to add

DriftRoot wrote:The good spirit in which those guides were created doesn't seem to exist anymore. That's a shame.

That's clearly false. We've got a wide variety of threads and guides, both on- and off-site, to answer all sorts of questions. These sorts of things are maintained by people who found something wrong and cared enough about it to do something. In short, they had/have the attitude I described above.