JOURNAL: dj_ultima_the_great (Jen )

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  • One hundred eighth entry - encoding... 2006-03-03 19:28:50 Time - 6:17, Noise - Skillet - "Imperfection"

    So yeah...I'm currently encoding a remaster of one of my recent videos. It's really not that much better, but it was just a test to see what I've learned.

    With that said...I have a long way to go, it seems.

    And I'm starting to get really frustrated. I'm trying really, REALLY hard to learn this technical stuff. I'm really keeping at it, even when I don't get it. But half of the time, when I ask questions, I get sarcastic responses. What? Don't you WANT me to get better? You can't just act like I'm already supposed to know everything. I wouldn't be asking if I did!

    I AM A NEWBIE.

    There. Are you happy? I said it. I don't know as much (or even HALF as much) as most of the "top" creators on this site do, but I am trying. I'd like a little support every once in a while. For those who HAVE been helping me without being jackasses (and there are a number of you), thanks.

    I'm not perfect. I'm sorry if that bothers people.


    - Jen 
  • One hundred seventh entry - mixed blessing 2006-03-03 00:49:08 Time - 11:22, Noise - Dido - "Here With Me"

    Hm...I'm not sure if this is good or bad. On a very happy note, I am now the proud owner of all of the Card Captor Sakura anime. (Thank you, eBay.) On a less happy note, I happened to get the 'ThinPak' - AKA, 'Lots of Episodes on One DVD, but Shitty Video QualityPak.' I mean, seriously. I could tell that its boast "Encoded in MPEG2!" wasn't going to be a good thing even before I popped the DVD in.

    Well, the quality wasn't as awful as it could have been, but it's pretty terrible for a DVD. I can't imagine editing with that...Avisynth to the rescue~! Of course, now I know where those episodes I downloaded came from...oh, don't give me that look. I'm not about to buy a series before I've seen the damn thing. I have no shame in downloading an anime that I was planning on buying anyway - and even after just the first ten or so episodes, I was pretty sure I was gonna get CCS. After some of the later episodes, I was dead set on buying it. And now...well...I own it. The illustrious 'ThinPak.' I suppose you get what you pay for, though, and considering I paid 54 dollars for a seventy episode series, I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised.

    Well, it's not a huge deal. I'm just happy to own it now.

    Oh, and I also got the second movie. I'm working on getting the first one. I figure I'm probably going to have to go a-bootleggin' if I want it in Japanese, though - and I'm not about to get a DVD with English only. We're past the age of single tongue releases, folks. Some English voice actors are good - most aren't, so give me my Japanese.

    So yeah. I have mixed feelings about these new DVDs. For just watching them, the quality doesn't bug me. If I ever intend to make an AMV with CCS, though (and I do, actually), then I'm gonna have to filter the hell out of that footage just to make it passable.

    Speaking of filters...my brain is broken. I'm intentionally avoiding touching Avisynth for the next few days, so I can regain some sanity. It's not that working with scripting is particularly difficult. It's just that I only have one half of the equation most of the time. I know what to put in for the command, but I don't know what values to put in the parentheses. And for some reason, the guides aren't too keen on giving you examples of what a full command line might look like.

    Anyway, I just don't know enough of Avisynth yet. Chances are, the answers are right under my nose. I just don't know enough to recognize them. But I'm getting better. Little by little, I'm learning more about what I can do. Little by little, my chances of making a better video technically are improving - and if I can learn this, then maybe I can learn a new editing program, too.

    Oh, listen to me, being all optimistic and crap. So unlike me. I don't think positively when it comes to myself. I should, but I don't. I prefer to give my hopes to others, where they might be more useful.

    And on that note, I just realized how long this is getting. Besides, it's my bedtime now. Nighty night, loves.


    - Jen 
  • One hundred sixth entry - Jaddzia-chan... 2006-03-01 16:39:27 Time - 3:29, Noise - Coldplay - "The Scientist"

    It was certainly weird. Thankfully, jubjub told me about a virtually identical method to what you use after I posted that entry. I use WMM2 instead, since it's what I have on hand (DV-AVI is still lossy, but it's the best I can do, I suppose). Anyway, for the sake of testing it, I exported my video anew. Haven't messed with it any further beyond that yet - no motivation. >_>;;

    To be honest, though, I've thought about it, and I wouldn't mind remastering AND remaking a few of my videos. No huge changes...mostly better quality clips, better audio, and maybe a few tweaks with my timing here and there. There is one video of mine that I would love to completely remake, because I didn't have enough of the right source footage at the time. My downloading days... >_<

    Well, I'm off to play a game. I'm too lazy to do much else at the moment.


    - Jen 
  • One hundred fifth entry - whoa...weird... 2006-03-01 13:16:39 Time - 12:02, Noise - Skillet - "Collide"

    Well, well, well...it would seem that I'm doing things I ought not to be doing... Allow me to explain.

    I'm playing with Avisynth (yet again), and I decided to see if I could somehow "trick" VirtualDubMod into accepting a .wmv file (in other words, one of my old music videos.) So, I typed the proper script into Avisynth, and was delightfully surprised to see the file open up when I tested it in Media Player Classic. Then, I opened VDub, and chose "Open file via Avisynth." I was again surprised to see that it opened up. However...however...this is where things get a little funny. I played the video, only to find that the image was upside down and the hue of the colors was really bizarre. Now, I think I understand why the colors might be wrong (with my very simplistic understanding of EADFAG), but the flipped image was truly confusing. I used a filter in VDub to flip the picture back to normal, but no filter in all of that program (or Avisynth) could possibly fix the odd colors. So...yeah. Interesting experience.

    I guess if I ever want to remaster an old video of mine, I'll just have to remake it altogether. Not really a huge deal in the case of several of them, but there are a few that will never get redone. Admittedly, I wouldn't WANT to redo/remaster some of them. The crapulence is what gives them charm - and since I would never get rid of the originals, it seems a little pointless to keep two copies of the same video on my hard drive. However, for the sake of the .org, I might consider remastering some of them. I may not care about lower quality, but much of this site does.

    Anyway, that was my weird experience of the morning. Now I should actually get around to messing with my source footage for my NEXT video... >_>


    - Jen 
  • One hundred fourth entry - Productivity... 2006-02-28 23:47:43 Time - 10:26, Noise - Final Fantasy VII: Piano Collections - "J-E-N-O-V-A"

    You ever get one of those days when it just feels like you're making a LOT of progress? When the lightbulb comes on time and time again in the same day? Yeah. That's what today is like for me. For the first time in a long time, I found myself reading something in EADFAG and going "hey, that's easy," and then moving onto the next section of relevance. Moreover, this was a section that I distinctly remember labeling as 'Greek' not more than a month ago. Now, it's just becoming a routine operation.

    I think an important part to understanding the guides is to start in a section where you already know what you're doing. I can say from experience that it was pretty daunting to just open up to a page and see so many 'foreign' words in my path. However, when I opened up to a part that I already somewhat understood, a few of the pieces seemed to fall into place - and then that triggered my comprehension of other concepts, and so on. Also, I found it a lot easier to just play around with some footage I had captured. I didn't worry about making a full-length video or anything. I just took the raw clips and experimented with them. That way, when I DO make my video, I'll understand what to do; of course, there are things I need to do before I even lay the first clip down in the timeline, but you get my drift.

    I may not get everything yet, but things are really looking up. As long as I have EADFAG (and the generally helpful #AMV folks), I think I'll be okay.

    And now...I need to go bask in some happy music to keep my warm, fuzzy feeling alive and kicking for the rest of the night. ^_^

    Or I could just play a videogame. ^_^ ^_^ ^_^


    - Jen 
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