Anime Expo 2012 AMV Contest Thread - WINNERS ANNOUNCED!!!

[Castor Troy]

Could I submit my videos via disc in lossless .AVI using something like Lagarith / UTVideo?

I always submit that plus an mpeg2.

[Rider4Z]

I sent one of my files as MP4 ACC. Only because I could not find my uncompressed lossless version of it though...

all of my files were mp4 aac.

[drewaconclusion]

I sent one of my files as MP4 ACC. Only because I could not find my uncompressed lossless version of it though...

all of my files were mp4 aac.

Same here.

[Ryvannis]

I sent one of my files as MP4 ACC. Only because I could not find my uncompressed lossless version of it though...

all of my files were mp4 aac.

Same. Honestly if you can open it in VLC then you're fine. Not trying discredit what xstylus said earlier about formats.

Also, MP4 for best compression. Though for some reason it hates HD formats because my AMV actually looked much better after doing a two pass and doubling the bit rate. Sadly, I noticed this after sending it to my beta testers.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Actually, the biggest problem with h264 playback in a con environment is dealing with the folks who insist quicktime will work.

[mirkosp]

The problem with MP4 and AAC is that the sync will vary based on the muxer, encoder, and decoder. You can get a 1-2 frames desync in worst cases, which is not nice for AMVs. MP3 would have the same issue if it wasn't for the fact that LAME is so widespread that everything is synced based on that. AAC otoh has a few common formats: nero was very popular (and used in older builds of zarxgui), but nowadays the best encoder is apple's so zarxgui also shifted to qtaac. The muxer also has a say: zarxgui uses L-SMASH nowadays (and it's not the only one), but mp4box isn't exactly uncommon either. Couple the fact that there are o9k standards for MP4 and you can guess where this goes.
Vorbis/FLAC audio should be preferred when possible, as well as MKV as a container, as far as online distro goes.
The "MP4 for best compression" is particularly misunderstandable... the compression work on the video is done by the codec, which I guess you were referring to x264 in this case. And you definitely can and should mux avc videos in MKV nowadays (I'd actually go so far as to start suggesting 10bit encoding, but I think it's a bit too early for AMVs right now).
So yes, in a con playback situation, which will have further audio delay based on the speaker positioning and room dimension, audio sync is a particularly important thing, and a 1-2 frame desync will only get worse, so that's why a reliable format is even more important.

That said, for cons, if possible, a lossless video codec along with PCM audio in avi would be the best thing, since it allows the contest coordinator to encode to their best preferred format (unless they clearly state a preferred set of formats and settings to use, in which case going with that could be better if it isn't too much of a hassle). With the rules that were available this year for AX, xvid q1 with pcm audio in avi was possibly the safest solution, but if they can take UTVideo, I'd go with that starting next year.

[drewaconclusion]

Actually, the biggest problem with h264 playback in a con environment is dealing with the folks who insist quicktime will work.

:truestory:

[The Wired Knight]

I disagree, I'd say the biggest problem in dealing with h.264 is being sued by motorola and having a court rule that you can't distribute your product anymore because of the patent violation.

[Rider4Z]

does the playback desynchronization in x264/mp4 matter if they will be encoded into a dvd for the convention show?

[Melichan923]

The problem with MP4 and AAC is that the sync will vary based on the muxer, encoder, and decoder. You can get a 1-2 frames desync in worst cases, which is not nice for AMVs. MP3 would have the same issue if it wasn't for the fact that LAME is so widespread that everything is synced based on that. AAC otoh has a few common formats: nero was very popular (and used in older builds of zarxgui), but nowadays the best encoder is apple's so zarxgui also shifted to qtaac. The muxer also has a say: zarxgui uses L-SMASH nowadays (and it's not the only one), but mp4box isn't exactly uncommon either. Couple the fact that there are o9k standards for MP4 and you can guess where this goes.
Vorbis/FLAC audio should be preferred when possible, as well as MKV as a container, as far as online distro goes.
The "MP4 for best compression" is particularly misunderstandable... the compression work on the video is done by the codec, which I guess you were referring to x264 in this case. And you definitely can and should mux avc videos in MKV nowadays (I'd actually go so far as to start suggesting 10bit encoding, but I think it's a bit too early for AMVs right now).
So yes, in a con playback situation, which will have further audio delay based on the speaker positioning and room dimension, audio sync is a particularly important thing, and a 1-2 frame desync will only get worse, so that's why a reliable format is even more important.

That said, for cons, if possible, a lossless video codec along with PCM audio in avi would be the best thing, since it allows the contest coordinator to encode to their best preferred format (unless they clearly state a preferred set of formats and settings to use, in which case going with that could be better if it isn't too much of a hassle). With the rules that were available this year for AX, xvid q1 with pcm audio in avi was possibly the safest solution, but if they can take UTVideo, I'd go with that starting next year.

Oh my God, mirkosp I thought I was the only one with this problem! I want to hug you right now for bringing this problem up in this thread. I started a journal entry on it a few days ago, but decided to not submit it because I didn't think there would be a solution other than converting the original PCM Audio to mp3 and adding ___ amount of milliseconds to the beginning like I've been doing. The problem has to be something on my end because not everyone has this problem. I've been pulling my hair out for weeks and staying up very late trying to figure this out to barely make some deadlines and remedy all my mp4 encodes. Eventually I ended up giving up in some cases and sent in an MPEG-2. I've only sent to a few cons this year but this sync issue making converting the biggest hassle ever. There was one con I sent to that would accept HuffYUV or Lagarith but they also required a pretty high resolution and I think sending in a 6-9GB file would not make other people who are trying to upload or the contest coordinators very happy. Also, I can't preview 1080p when it's encoded as lossless - my computer doesn't handle it so well and not being able to preview it before sending it bothers me. I looked over the Anime Expo rules and didn't see Lossless as an option, but at this point I may have no choice if it is allowed. I have yet to try UTVideo and I don't know if the size is any better than Lagarith.

The thing is, I upgraded to the newest version of Zarx in February and I continue to have this issue. My very first encode with it came out fine, but I think that was a coincidence. The demuxing and replacing with a delayed mp3 and remuxing solution works sometimes, but still I can see an ever so slight difference from the test previews with other codecs I render from Vegas. Maybe another container will work like you said.

A lot of years my e-mails don't go through to Anime Expo (getting kind of nervous actually that I haven't gotten the FTP info yet) but I will try to ask if those said formats are an option. At the very least if I can't submit I know there might be a solution for me in the future after all. THANK YOU!