-
Mein Gott I hate waiting...
2003-03-29 23:04:22
Well, the Tekkoshocon AMV contest is now over, and the ballots should be getting all turned in by people soon. I absolutely hate waiting. It's just no fun whatsoever. I didn't have to worry about it at Katsucon, because I quite seriously did not expect to win anything. Here... I think I have a shot at it. My gut feeling is that I am not going to win, but I believe I could pull it off. But, if I lose, I won't be able to really complain- the videos I think might beat me are well deserving. I just wish more of the editors had actually come to the con with the videos :/
I won't go too much into the contest and what I thought of it in specifics now- I'll do a more formal con report after everything it done. Though I don't know all the details behind it, I was a bit disappointed in the setup. Things didn't look nearly as good as they should have, and the audio was a bit off at times (though some of that may have been the sources).
So far, though, I've had a great time. I managed to get into one of the game shows, Fanboy Fued, and ended up winning the show for my team - I was the 2nd team member in the 'speed round'. And while I flubbed one of the questions royally ("Hale nochi Guu" was probably not the best of answers to "Name an anime with lots of animals in it...."), I did manage to pull in the necessary 116 points to win the game for us. So, even if I get slaughtered in the AMV contest, I still walked away with the first Noir DVD and the Getter Robo box set. Not too shabby, I think.
After I get this entered, I'll be throwing up PPG:R on the Carrot. While I have my doubts it will win, it was very very well received, and there's little sweeter music to my ears than applause and cheers for one of my videos. I hope those of you that download it enjoy it as well. I had a lot of fun making it. -
Where is Skuld when you need her...
2003-03-27 08:23:52
I think my computers hate me. They never want to behave, and do stuff that makes me want to either pull my hair out or throw the monitor through a window. Yesterday was probably the most abnoxious of these incidents in a long time. Once again, my main editing computer in on the fritz- only this time, it's not my (at the time) largely empty A/V drive- its the main system drive. And it went out in almost -exactly- the same fashion as the A/V drive did a few months ago. Completely trashed the MBR and the partition table. Bye-bye data! Thankfully- this time, I'm rather glad it was the system drive and NOT the A/V drive... I actually have a lot of stuff I don't want to lose on the A/V drive. So, by the best I've been able to figure out, either I have some nasty and sneaky virus that is killing my drives, or I'm having hardware problems. Once I get the replacement drive from WD, if I don't find any virusses on the A/V drive or any of the software I install, it means it's something with the hardware... and there are like three things it could be, or an interaction thereof : the MoBo, the CD-RW drive (since both times the drives were killed I was trying to burn a CD, and the power supply. Since I really have no idea which it is, and I don't want to lose yet -another- drive (especially the A/V drive... I do NOT want to have to deal with Dell again...), I'll likely end up just replacing all three.
One of the more annoying things about this is that I'm probably not going to be able to have CDs with my newer vids on them at Tekkoshocon to give out (assuming anyone there wants them :p). However, I may yet pull it off... I'm pretty sure that between the Carrot and my laptop, I have all the vids I wanted to have on the disc, and the friend I'm staying with has a burner on his computer. So, I may be able to get at least a few done to hand out. And if WD is halfway expeditious about getting the replacement drive to me, I'll only lose a day or so of editing. Which is good, because I need to be getting the ACen vid done. Hopefully I'll get some of the rotoscoping I can do on the laptop done on the trip down and in my spare time over the weekend.
Well, I now have my tickets out to ACen, so I'm locked in to going. Now all I need to do is figure out accomodations, and I'm set :p
-
Weeks pass too slowly...
2003-03-25 08:36:30
Three days from now, I should be on my way South to Pittsburg for Tekkoshocon. From what I can find out from the website, it should be fairly relaxing. For one thing, there doens't look to be nearly the problem of choosing what to do, because there's not -that- much to do. I think they're vastly overestimating the amount of time the Cosplay will take... Katsu's wasn't even 3 hours long, IIRC. But, it'll be nice to see my old roommate again. Though one thing about the con does frighten me slightly... they're showing Ebichu late night in one of the video rooms. O-O;;;;
Well, all the videos that I can put up for DL are now up (well, OK, I could put up PPG:R, but I prefer to wait until it's been shown at the con first). With a little bit of luck, I'll get "Love is on the Way" back in the next few weeks so I can put it up as well.
Work on the new video is coming along slowly. I didn't get much done yesterday due to my computer not being happy about having been on for like 3 days straight downloading Jungle wa Itsumo Hale nochi Guu episodes and causing Premiere to crash and burn frequently. I'm going to have to buckle down and blow through as much of the non-effects parts of it as possible over the next few days. -
I love making evil videos ^o^
2003-03-24 08:44:51
After a nice, beautiful weekend (I do so love spring), I hate going back to work. Bleh. But, at least I have the end of the week to look forward to- I'll be off Friday and (apparently, and somewhat unfortunately) Monday as well to head down to Pittsburgh for Tekkoshocon (www.tekkoshocon.com). One of the members of No-Brand Videos, one of my closest friends from school lives in Pitt (as well as some of my wife's mother's family), so it should be an interesting weekend. PPG:R is in the AMV contest, and it'll be interesting (to say the least...) to see the audience reaction to it.
The remaster of Eden 12/24 is now up on the Donut, and DAMN it looks good. AVISynth and TMPGEnc just rock. The 50MB 320x240 MPEG-1 file at full screen on my main monitor (19" running at 1600x1200) looks only slightly worse than the full-quality MPEG2 encode, it's just incredible.
I also took some time to do the initial prep work (all I really have left is the encode and fidddling with 2DCleaner a bit - though that may not even be necessary) for encoding the original copy of Kiss the Girl to put up. I was really surprised... once I did a bit of cropping to eliminate the audio buzz at the bottom and overscan problems at the edges, it looks pretty darn good without any cleaning up.
And finally, I got a start on the 2nd video I'll be sending in to ACen (Eden 12/24 being the first). ^o^ That video is gonna be so much fun. I love making videos that confuse people and make them blink and say "What the %*(&%# was that???". It's really fun having an anime that like 98% of the community hasn't even heard of before to play with. My intent is to have it finished up by the first weekend in April so I can have adequate time for my Otakon video. I've pretty much dropped the idea of trying to get something done for Shoujocon... with not being able to do the Azumanga video for it, I don't have any real inspiration. :/ - Bigger, yet blurrier, guns 2003-03-21 21:17:10 Well, after several days of fiddling around with it to tray and make it looks a -little- bit less like ass on a stick, I finally have the "Big Gun" video up on the 'Carrot. The file I was encoding from is nearly 6 years old. And it shows. Hopefully people will still be able to enjoy the video- I know I still do, despite the countless times I've watched it in the nearly 7 years since it was first created.
JOURNAL: Ashyukun (Robert Babcock)
Current server time: Oct 28, 2025 19:23:05