AMV Best of DVD Collection - possible sales and fundraiser?

[dark_myuutwo]

Hi! For the past couple of months at least, or several actually, I've been working on putting together a DVD-R or two of some of the best of the AMV's available on this site, and I was thinking of this:

Seeing as the AMV site is run based on donations and money, how does the idea making some good quality DVD's of the videos sound? I would imagine that such DVD's could be sold for $10 US plus small shipping, minus $1-2 per disc to cover material costs.

Features that I had in mind for the DVD would include:

Videos formatted in 16:9 Widescreen
Remastered video quality and sound*
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

*Note: For the remastered sound, I would be using CD sources to replace the audio portion of the original video files, unless edits made on the video(s) make it impossible otherwise

And the videos would be voted for and selected by fans based on voter-supported video award results and general polls.


This is just an idea, but I wanted to get your opinions before I send an e-mail to the head of this site.

Any comments or questions?

[Scintilla]

Hi! For the past couple of months at least, or several actually, I've been working on putting together a DVD-R or two of some of the best of the AMV's available on this site, and I was thinking of this:

Have you been going to the creators and getting DVD-quality MPEG-2 copies of the videos? Just using the distro versions and re-compressing is likely to look bad quality-wise.

Features that I had in mind for the DVD would include:

Videos formatted in 16:9 Widescreen

What if they're 4:3 videos that would look bad widescreen?

Remastered video quality and sound*
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

*Note: For the remastered sound, I would be using CD sources to replace the audio portion of the original video files, unless edits made on the video(s) make it impossible otherwise

See what I said before about getting high-quality MPEG-2s.
And why the 5.1? I've only ever heard of one AMV that used 5.1 sound...

[mforman]

I think it's a good idea in principle, however you have to bear in mind that AMVs are a breach of copyright. As it stands, they seem to be pretty much ignored by the companies concerned, but if a-m-v.org started making money out of AMVs then the lawyers would be all over it.

[angelx03]

I think it's a good idea in principle, however you have to bear in mind that AMVs are a breach of copyright. As it stands, they seem to be pretty much ignored by the companies concerned, but if the Org started making money out of AMVs then the lawyers would be all over it.

Yea, I have to agree with him/her. What you can do is do something like what Red Wolf did when he distributed the AMVs. We can send you a blank DVD-R, burn us the copy, and then send it back to us. All we have to do is pay for the blank DVDs and shipping costs. Of course, you have to be dedicated to do this free service.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

This is a horrific idea where the possible BAD THINGS that could happen far outweigh the good things.

This is bad. Very very very bad.

[dark_myuutwo]

Damn those copyright lawyers! >:-P

Hmm. That seems like a good idea, sending DVD-R blanks and postage money (or stamps either way). Of course I do have a dual-format DVD burner, being able to burn both + and - R discs.

But then I don't have every video on the site, and wouldn't be able to get everything because:

1) I don't have a personal 'net connection yet
2) I don't have time to scour through all the videos (unless people just request specific sets of videos)

But it is a good idea, so I may take that into consideration once I get a 'net connection.

[dark_myuutwo]

Videos formatted in 16:9 Widescreen

What if they're 4:3 videos that would look bad widescreen?

That's not the case. I only use videos that are of VCD+ quality or better. I won't use small videos (well, with one exception, but this one video is not from this site I think - it's an Urusei Yatsura AMV that uses an Alphaville song, "Fallen Angel")

What I do is crop the video somewhat from 4:3 to 16:9, and if that doesn't look good on a TV (when I have burnt it to DVD-RW), I re-encode the video differently. A friend who I gave a test disc to said that the videos looked fine but that I had killed one of the videos, so I went and re-did that one and it looks good now.

Remastered video quality and sound*
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

See what I said before about getting high-quality MPEG-2s.
And why the 5.1? I've only ever heard of one AMV that used 5.1 sound...

Which AMV was that?

And for 5.1, it's mixed from a 2.0 stereo source (unless I have a DVD-Audio 5.1 track for certain tracks, which has not happened...yet), but I'm currently testing a new 5.1 mixing method I came up with myself. The first tests didn't go so well, so I'm trying something different that I will test on a 5.1 system on Friday.

But if I don't have a CD or high-quality MPEG-2 source for the audio, that would be something I could do is ask for the original WAV file from the creators.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

This was the very basis of RedWolf's service which he had to close down because of lack of interest.

The fact of the matter is that people can't be bothered to go through the process of sending blanks and postage when they can download the video here for free in minutes.

If you are getting the videos off the org as a source for this dvd then there is going to be no benefit in quality... I don't see where the interest will be as it's already been proven as an unsucessful venture.

[dark_myuutwo]

but if the Org started making money out of AMVs then the lawyers would be all over it.

But look at it from this perspective: a-m-v.org is making money based on donations, and none of that goes to the anime studios or musical artists involved because, well, that'd put the site out of business. But we're paying to get the videos on our membership accounts so...

Selling DVD's to raise money towards the site would be slightly no different, other than the fact that songs are also being sold without paying royalties to the artists, but I feel that this is no different.

But for an idea, maybe what I'll do is compile a set volume of DVD's of the best in AMV's, and have people "order" the disc(s) they may want, and send in blanks and postage so I can just make copies from my own master discs, once they have been put together.

The only issue I have is giving out my address. If someone were to donate however much it costs for me to rent a postal box in Canada (via PayPal), that would be no problem, and would solve personal privacy issues

[dark_myuutwo]

If you are getting the videos off the org as a source for this dvd then there is going to be no benefit in quality... I don't see where the interest will be as it's already been proven as an unsucessful venture.

Hmm. Interesting.

I have a question: For how long did this person do this for?

As for DVD and quality control - I try and do my best to clean the video, and that's one reason I use DVD-RW's as test discs so that if they don't look good on TV (which hasn't happened really, the bad quality) I can try something different.

But my main concern is the sound quality as well. I don't like using using audio from WMV's for example, because they are almost always poor quality...