TheAX AMV Contest 2009 Finalists are...

[milkmandan]

What do you mean, "'or' part of the rules"? This is all the original post says about submission resolution, etc.:

Note: All digital video formats submitted to the contest are required to follow NTSC Standard of
720 by 480 pixels resolution at 29.97 frames per second interlaced or 720x480 pixels resolution
at 24 frames per second progressive. Videos submitted in 24fps will be converted to 29.97fps.
The 3/2 pull down conversion (to make 24fps video NTSC compliant for presentation) may cause
entry video to appear jittery in fast action scenes.

What part of this doesn't fall under NTSC standard resolution/AR?

NTSC Standard of 720 by 480 pixels resolution at 29.97 frames per second interlaced or 720x480 pixels resolution at 24 frames per second progressive.
http://www.websters-dictionary-online.o ... C+STANDARD
Slap me silly if i am wrong but i've never heard of the NTSC Standard being 24 fps progressive :\
However, I missed the following part: "Videos submitted in 24fps will be converted to 29.97fps.
The 3/2 pull down conversion (to make 24fps video NTSC compliant for presentation) may cause entry video to appear jittery in fast action scenes."
So in Meli's case. If you have 848x480 finished amv product in SPAR, what would you resize and letter box with? so that come MPEG-2 conversion it doesn't look stretched? 720x352? and letter box? Doesn't that make it look really flat? or is corrected when flagged for 4:3?

Again we have no idea what every AMV coordinator does to prepare the footage for the contest or why they do things. Like i said before, i've seen some played straight off a desktop using VLC or something, odd yes, but i've seen it.

If Meli did want 720x480 square pixel, then she'd need something like this:

LanczosResize(720,400)
AddBorders(0,40,0,40)

Rather

Code: Select all

LanczosResize(720,408)
AddBorders(0,36,0,36)

848x480 SPAR --> 720x408 SPAR
by constraining proportions?

[Castor Troy]

Dear God, can we just talk about the actual videos now?

It's getting tiring coming into this thread with 10000000000 pages of technical stuff people can just read in the guides.

[MisterFurious]

Dear God, can we just talk about the actual videos now?

It's getting tiring coming into this thread with 10000000000 pages of technical stuff people can just read in the guides.

Hear, hear! This thread was starting to read like stereo instructions.

[Scintilla]

What do you mean, "'or' part of the rules"? This is all the original post says about submission resolution, etc.:

Note: All digital video formats submitted to the contest are required to follow NTSC Standard of
720 by 480 pixels resolution at 29.97 frames per second interlaced or 720x480 pixels resolution
at 24 frames per second progressive. Videos submitted in 24fps will be converted to 29.97fps.
The 3/2 pull down conversion (to make 24fps video NTSC compliant for presentation) may cause
entry video to appear jittery in fast action scenes.

What part of this doesn't fall under NTSC standard resolution/AR?

NTSC Standard of 720 by 480 pixels resolution at 29.97 frames per second interlaced or 720x480 pixels resolution at 24 frames per second progressive.
http://www.websters-dictionary-online.o ... C+STANDARD
Slap me silly if i am wrong but i've never heard of the NTSC Standard being 24 fps progressive :\
However, I missed the following part: "Videos submitted in 24fps will be converted to 29.97fps.
The 3/2 pull down conversion (to make 24fps video NTSC compliant for presentation) may cause entry video to appear jittery in fast action scenes."

I was under the impression that 23.976fps progressive with the 3:2 pulldown upon playback flag was NTSC-spec compliant, as there are plenty of commercial R1 NTSC DVDs that are encoded this way. However, this has nothing to do with resolution or aspect ratio.

So in Meli's case. If you have 848x480 finished amv product in SPAR, what would you resize and letter box with? so that come MPEG-2 conversion it doesn't look stretched? 720x352? and letter box? Doesn't that make it look really flat? or is corrected when flagged for 4:3?

Yes, 720x352 and letterbox, flagged for 4:3. I thought we already established that (Meli's second screenshot was from just such an MPEG-2, wasn't it?).

If Meli did want 720x480 square pixel, then she'd need something like this:

LanczosResize(720,400)
AddBorders(0,40,0,40)

Rather

Code: Select all

LanczosResize(720,408)
AddBorders(0,36,0,36)

848x480 SPAR --> 720x408 SPAR
by constraining proportions?

Actually, 400 plus borders of 40 is still better than 408 plus borders of 36. This is because 40 is evenly divisible by 8, so the borders each take up five whole macroblocks. In other words, you don't have a sudden cut from picture to border in the middle of a macroblock.

(Pedantic note for those who don't have much experience with the gritty details: ideally it would be 720x405, because 720*(9/16) = 405, but we have to take the nearest multiple of 16 in order to make the macroblocks line up nicely for an optimal encode. 408, on the other hand, is 480*(720/848) rounded up, but this is less exact because 848x480 was an approximation to begin with; if you keep 480 lines constant, then the ideal 16:9 square pixels resolution is 853.333x480, but that won't work for obvious reasons.)

[s0matic]

OH backtracking a bit, on the HD front. I render everything for 4:3 because of the fact that renting HD video setups is expensive. VERY expensive. I did the discs widescreen last year because the built in equipment at Nokia was all set for it. But since we aren't using Nokia this year its back to 4:3. Eventually I would like to go HD with it. Once I get a blu-ray burner and teach myself how to engineer it (and build my new edit rig).

That's funny, I hard-letterboxed my entry last year, so I cringed when you had to crop it and set it anamorphic, it looked so blurry .

Ironically this year to prevent that from happening, I sent my entry anamorphic . Doesn't matter though, since I didn't get in this year

[milkmandan]

All tech talk can be taken to PM.
==========
in effort to stir away from tech talk then...

for those that made it in, do you have it online for us to preview?
or would you rather not share until AFTER the contest?

*i prefer not to share, to avoid boring the video out and getting over played in peoples minds.

[Sephiroth]

Well technicly my video was shown at fanime from what i understand, the big irony i just realized being that lain Came out at the same time i started editing thus it being out for as many years as i've been trying to get in. I do have it up some where though not on the org, and i still feel mystified about the whole thing have no idea what i did do that i hadn't done for dozens of other videos. It's hard to put into words the assortment of feelings i have towards this, I do look forwards to seeing the rest of you guys.

All tech talk can be taken to PM.
==========
in effort to stir away from tech talk then...

for those that made it in, do you have it online for us to preview?
or would you rather not share until AFTER the contest?

*i prefer not to share, to avoid boring the video out and getting over played in peoples minds.

[Rider4Z]

All tech talk can be taken to PM.
==========
in effort to stir away from tech talk then...

THANK YOU geez!

for those that made it in, do you have it online for us to preview?
or would you rather not share until AFTER the contest?

*i prefer not to share, to avoid boring the video out and getting over played in peoples minds.

i did a search couple days ago. very few have theirs up -_-

*i upload as soon as a video is finalized. i feel waiting for a premier at a convention jinxes myself, so i just don't do it. and with a convention like expo, i doubt enough people in the audience would have already seen the videos and end up skewing the results. even if it does... well at least you get air time

me personally, i prefer seeing an amv more than once before i decide which one deserves my vote. reviewability counts for a better video in my opinion. i regretted my choice for favorite comedy in 07 after i watching it the second time. another entry truly had more effort and deserved it more.

[milkmandan]

i did a search couple days ago. very few have theirs up -_-

*i upload as soon as a video is finalized. i feel waiting for a premier at a convention jinxes myself, so i just don't do it. and with a convention like expo, i doubt enough people in the audience would have already seen the videos and end up skewing the results. even if it does... well at least you get air time

me personally, i prefer seeing an amv more than once before i decide which one deserves my vote. reviewability counts for a better video in my opinion. i regretted my choice for favorite comedy in 07 after i watching it the second time. another entry truly had more effort and deserved it more.

How come you took Lord of the Anime out from your sig ?

Hey hey at least i put my description up on the org, and even suppled a nice slew of screenshots.

[XStylus]

To what level AMV video quality is judged or nitpicked is AX's call though.

The judges more or less make that call, and each judge has their own opinions and standards for what is considered good or bad quality. Though Michael pre-screens videos before the judges see them, he sets an extremely high bar for what gets a preemptive DQ. It has to be nails-on-chalkboard poor for him to do so. He pretty much strives to be as minimally intrusive in the overall process as possible.