Time for a dumb video rant! Bring the flames!

General discussion of Anime Music Videos
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Arigatomina
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Post by Arigatomina » Sat Aug 09, 2003 11:33 am

Ah, my mistake on the 'beginner' part, then. ^_^; I think I automatically assume someone who uses downloaded footage is a new editor. Wishful thinking on my part, and just me wanting to believe that people don't break that rule once they've been here for a short while. Then again, some people take years before they can be considered 'good,' so I think I consider a beginner a person who hasn't caught the 'idea' of timing yet. That's just me.

But I support the idea of beta's - it would certainly clear up the number of vids here (and I would have loved the offer a few months back when I couldn't get anyone to look at any of my vids - learning by practice alone spawns a lot of mistakes). Unfortunately the only advice I've gotten when I asked someone to look at a beta of my vid was to scrap the vid completely because it wasn't 'original' enough. And you know, that's one of my best vids yet - with some of the best reception I've gotten here. So I'm personally burnt on the idea of beta testers now, but I imagine many people would appreciate that - assuming you're willing to wait 3hrs to get some of the vids via aim.

I'm glad this topic was brought up - I admit, my first thought was that it was merely a flame on bad editors. ^_^ I'm happy to see it isn't that.

This topic really goes back to Omni's little 'campaign' to help editors improve - the question still unanswered is *how* to do that before the bad vids make it onto the org server - where they can't be removed or corrected. I still push an option to delete old vids, replace poorly done vids that have the potential of being better and so on. As it is, once the bad vid is up all you can do is give help so future vids by that creator won't be so bad - you can't do anything about the existing vid. :?

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stormybaka
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Post by stormybaka » Sat Aug 09, 2003 11:47 am

Who knows maybe we could apply something similar to the banner system to vids and they have to be voted in..But that is a long shot!!
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Arigatomina
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Post by Arigatomina » Sat Aug 09, 2003 12:02 pm

Yeah, voting the vids in would end up being more a matter of opinion (genres, stories people like or dislike). But voting them out - if you only put the very worst vids up to be gone over, could work better. If you voted to see which vids get put up, only the very best would make it, or ones that appeal to the general audience - death to originality in that case.

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AbsoluteDestiny
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Post by AbsoluteDestiny » Sat Aug 09, 2003 12:07 pm

I think the thing that I'm concerned with more than the quality of concept or execution is really the first few things on the list above.

Getting audio from the right place and knowing what it is

Removing any subtitles or logos if they exist.


Such simple things, really, but they make all the difference to the video. I would never have posted about this video if it wasn't for those things.

I see videos in contests that are exactly the same - divx logos everywhere, incorrect titles. This isnt just marginal stuff on the web its at cons too. That's what I'm most concerned with.


The quality of the video itself, well... it's tricky. If someone wants help and wants to learn they will. We could be more proactive to help people, but its a tricky and often thankless task :)

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Arigatomina
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Post by Arigatomina » Sat Aug 09, 2003 12:37 pm

I definitely agree about the logos and subtitles. It's almost always a matter of using downloaded material when a vid has subtitles - blatant breaking of the rules to start with - and with the guide on how to get around that, there's really no excuse for it. The logos are just plain annoying, and the divx one is the worst. As for audio, I've killed more than my share of cd and dvd rips with bad compression, so I can't speak for that. :roll:

I'm surprised they'd let vids with logos into a contest, though. :? Don't they screen the entries?

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AbsoluteDestiny
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Post by AbsoluteDestiny » Sat Aug 09, 2003 12:40 pm

Arigatomyna wrote:I'm surprised they'd let vids with logos into a contest, though. :? Don't they screen the entries?
Some do some dont - but traditionally the standard has been "Is the quality so bad we cant see the video" rather than things like logos.

There was a discussion recently about wether or not Otakon should do this in their prescreening.

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Arigatomina
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Post by Arigatomina » Sat Aug 09, 2003 12:50 pm

I'm out of the loop. I thought only the best dvd ripped high quality vids were taken, certainly nothing with blatant logos (that could easily be removed) and heaven forbid anything with subtitles or fuzzy footage. If the quality isn't good, they won't win, so why not make a rule not to have them? But that's besides the point.

We don't screen vids on the org for quality issues - we don't even enforce the 'no downloaded footage' rule. You have to start somewhere - killing the subtitled vids would be a beginning (and they *can* remove those if they're pointed to the guide). Still, that won't improve anything but visual quality - poor timing is much worse in my opinion. I can sit through a vid with fuzzy visuals or a distracting logo - but if it's just footage laid over music, there's not much point. That's just me.

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FurryCurry
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Post by FurryCurry » Sat Aug 09, 2003 1:53 pm

I may be on the wrong track a little here, but at least at some of the smaller cons, there may be issues with getting enough entries at all to have an amv contest of any decent length, so the standard for entries is "can we play it on the screen?" rather than "is it good enough to make the finals?" other cons may wish to screen everything they get, to be "fair" to the creators, as long as a video meets any content guidelines that are in place.
Perhaps it's the same thing that happens on the forums here. People get very enthusiastic about making videos, or are just lazy, and really don't spend any time reading or looking for answers before posting a question for the 78932075th time, or posting a crap video to the org.

It seems to me that for every new creator that takes this seriously enough to really want to improve, like you Arigatomyna, there are five or more who don't, won't or can't, for whatever reason. I don't see this stopping anytime soon, and have no idea about any way to put a stop to it, other than honestly pointing out crap as crap, and offering to help the people who show a willingness to work to improve themselves, and hoping the ones who don't get bored and move on to other hobbies.
My Eyes Are The Victim's Eyes.
My Hands Are The Assailant's Hands.

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AbsoluteDestiny
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Post by AbsoluteDestiny » Sat Aug 09, 2003 2:06 pm

I think the only reason I wanted to post this topic is because, well, it's such a shame. I like seeing good videos and I especially like seeing good comedy videos (given they can often be very hard to do).

The video here, ok, it was never going to really amount to much but I could have still enjoyed it if it had made some basic changes. I like seeing lots of people getting involved in amvs, it's just a shame that it doesn't seem to be increasing the number of good comedy videos all that much :)

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Nemoxs
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Re: Time for a dumb video rant! Bring the flames!

Post by Nemoxs » Sat Aug 09, 2003 2:11 pm

AbsoluteDestiny wrote:http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... hp?v=21656

OK, Chibi Neko Nobi - I'm very sorry. I know you just want to make videos to have fun but I'm afraid I have to use your video as an example of bad videos.

It's just too illconceived.

OK, so what's wrong with this video?

Well, let's see:


1) The song is not by Monty Python. It's actually by the Freddy Martin Orchestra. Please do not use kazaa to get audio for your videos, it is very rare for something to have accurate artist information there.

2) Failing to crop digisub subtitles. They are on almost every second of the video and have no relation to the video at all.

3) Divx Logo. When editing with digisubs, often the editing program will use DirectShow to obtain the source. When playing files with divx5, a logo will appear unless you go into the decoder options and disable it. If you do not do this it will pop up every time a new file is used in your video. Which is a lot. I've seen this far too many times at conventions this year and it has to stop! It's a few mouse clicks away!

4) The concept. OK, for one, there isn't a single coconut in the entire video. That's forgivable but there also doesnt seem to be any double meaning to coconut, like breasts or balls or anything like that because the "big ones small ones some as big as your head" lyric shows totally random scenes. (ok the second time it seems to suggest it could mean the girls in the show but that makes no sense either)

The only redeeming factor is that it is small, which is more than you can say for the soon-to-be-banned-for-too-much-violence video The Death Vid which has the honour of being 75mb, 3 mins long encoded with cinepak with uncompressed 22khz mono sound.

ay carumba...

^_^ My video's are bad, but I can clearly and definitly say I've NEVER used kazaa for footage or songs, I own everything I use, I have everything I use..

That doesnt stop them from being crap... but heh.

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