AWA 2005 Pro Contest Discussion Thread

[RutKiskasca]

Sorry about the double post. I just finished my third viewing of all four disks all the way through, and re-read the thread a second time, and just wanted to share some thoughts.

First, playback issues. I experience significant skipping on certain videos, which I would attribute to scratched media, except there are no visible scratches. I also played all four disks all the way through in my lappy, and while I noticed that it acted like it wanted to skip at all the same places, the DVD drive chugged right on through these bumpy patches without actually hiccupping. The only drawback was that, just as Beowulf mentioned, there were some aspect ratio issues. Those of you wiser than me in matters related to the MPEG2 codec could probably confirm this for me, but isn't the AR auto-adaptive to your screen on a television when played from your DVD deck, but in a media player window it reads something from the tags to set the AR? Is that why the AR looks so markedly different on the computer? I bet trythil or zero1 would know this...and I'm sure Steakslim would rip me up for not remembering his Aspect Ratio 101 lessons he taught me a few months back.

Second, discussions of source, style, quality, etc. I immediately found myself on the first viewing thinking, "I bet that one was made by X" or "This is totally a Y style video" The second time through, I realized how distracting that was from my actual enjoyment of the video. I caught myself thinking, "I bet so-and-so did this...I like this other video of theirs better." Before I knew it, I was subconsciously judging blind videos against known videos that weren't even in the contest! Another thing that Beowulf said that I liked, "the best way to judge is to watch a disc a day until the judging ends. Watch the videos over and over" The second time through, I re-evaluated a lot of videos that at first glance, I had thought were not going to make my final cut.

That brings me to my final point, how I am judging the first round. Of course, everyone will and should judge their own way, but for those few of you who care, here's how I'm nominating my first cut. I am basically using the first round to divide the videos into categories. Every video gets at least one nomination, and just about all of them get four or five nominations. That way, in round two, I am not looking at 57 videos for 21 categories, I am looking at somewhere between 4-10 videos for 21 categories. Round two is where I will thin the herd a little. Probably with some variation of what someone else said, where they gave everything kind of a star scale, and cut the lowest couple of vids. I didn't cut anything this first round. Even if I didn't think a video was a good action video, if it had action, I nominated it for action. If it had any lip sync at all, it got a lip sync nomination. If it had narrative text effects, it got a trailer nod, because it told part of a larger story. If it had even a single frame of live action or other non-anime, it got a non-anime nomination. Of course, next round a video with only two or three lines of lip sync is not going to make the second cut against a video that has good lip sync all the way through as it's primary focus. But, I wanted to subdivide the videos into only the categories I thought they had any role at all in, and that will allow me to really sit down and be critical of these smaller categorized groups against each other. Divide and conquer, so to speak.

Damn, this is turning out as long winded as most of my profile video descriptions. Round one was fun...I can't wait for round two. I happen to have access to an actual movie theater with a projector and sound system that I can feed the DVDs to, so I'm planning on watching them on the big screen for the second round of judging. 26 minutes goes by more comfortably with popcorn and raisinettes.

[Kusoyaro]

My 2 cents on the Pro contest so far (since I've only watched 1 disc and change)...what's with the DVD menu music? Is there some significance to it, or is it just random? Also, who picked it out?

[RutKiskasca]

My 2 cents on the Pro contest so far (since I've only watched 1 disc and change)...what's with the DVD menu music? Is there some significance to it, or is it just random? Also, who picked it out?

I love the DVD menu music. The DVD landscapes, however...meh...

Oh, and in reference to my comment earlier about watching the DVDs in a theater, it occurred to me that I should specify that I will be the only one in the theater....no violation of the FBI warning at the beginning of the discs will be committed.

[Scintilla]

My 2 cents on the Pro contest so far (since I've only watched 1 disc and change)...what's with the DVD menu music? Is there some significance to it, or is it just random? Also, who picked it out?

I love the DVD menu music. The DVD landscapes, however...meh...

X2, plus I wish they'd made more representative thumbnails instead of just black screens or "Entry ##" for every thumbnail on the menus...

[Tsunami Jones]

Category: Best Professional Endeavor

Isn't this a bit redundant?

[Ashyukun]

I love the DVD menu music. The DVD landscapes, however...meh...

X2, plus I wish they'd made more representative thumbnails instead of just black screens or "Entry ##" for every thumbnail on the menus...

I'd have to guess that the software used to put the DVDs together just took a frame from a certain time into the video stream (of which the title card was first) and used it for the thumbnail. I'd imagine if they wanted to actually use something from the video for it that they would have asked us to submit an image file of the frame we wanted as to avoid someone coming back and saying, "OMGWTF my video got screwed because you used a crappy thumbnail!" Yeah, we're supposed to be 'professional' in all of this- but you know someone would complain.

I still think it would have been nice to have title cards with more than just the entry number like we had in past years, but at least the voting website has more info on them.

[Jnzk]

My 2 cents on the Pro contest so far (since I've only watched 1 disc and change)...what's with the DVD menu music? Is there some significance to it, or is it just random? Also, who picked it out?

I love the DVD menu music.

Background music was the best part of the DVDs. But chapters don't seem to work in PowerDVD.

[Kusoyaro]

Oh yeah, can someone PM me the URL to the voting site? I know my login, but I can't remember the URL...I'd like to print out the video list while I'm still here at work (no printer at home)...I might be watching the videos this weekend, so it'd be nice to have that printout. Thanks!

[doughboy]

Anyone else think that the "Best Pet Profile" category needs to go? It really clashes with "Best Character Profile" considering a pet profile is still just a character profile... and there really aren't enough of either to require 2 split categories.

I'm hoping we'll shave a bunch of them off before final voting, cause it's getting too difficult to scrounge up nominees for some of them when I don't feel certain categories actually have anything worth awarding.

It's already at critical mass with: Best Action, Best Artistic Endeavour, Best Character Profile, Best Comedy, Best Drama, Best Overall, Best Romance, Best Angst, Best Dance, Best Foreign Language Video, Best Horror, Best Instrumental, Best Lip-Synch, Best non-anime, Best Original AMV, Best Sentimental, Best Trailer, Fun/Upbeat

Best Professional Endeavor def seems too much like Best Original or Best Overall. I also don't see much diff between Best Dance and Fun/Upbeat, as anything that would be dance is also fun and upbeat, I wouldn't miss Dance if it went away.

[Darkseid]

Hmmm.... the only one I could see clearly eliminating is best horror. Didn't see enough nominees for that one.