conventions guide

[jasper-isis]

has anyone ever considered making a guide for submitting amv's to anime conventions? i mean as in optimizing your video for a con. What size/kind of screen will the videos be played on? how loud will the speakers be turn up? will the videos be play from a cd or VHS tape? (obviously i've never been to an amv contest at a con.) any tips and helpful information would be good for the guide too.

... hope that wasn't too off-topic

[RichLather]

No, it's quite on-topic as far as I'm concerned.

Unfortunately, there is only so much that can be done on the user's end for optimizing their video for a convention audience.

Every con's video and audio setup will be different--you can go from the massive projection-screen auditorium setup of AWA or ACen or little more than a big-screen TV at a smaller son.

From what I have seen, the existing guides do a lot in terms of what a user can do to make their creations their best.

[Dannywilson]

Ok, from what I saw at AWA 8. Encode in the most widely used formats, even if its a big con where they MIGHT have obscure Codec X, encode in MPEG-1 or DivX. There's no telling if they have Huffyuv or MPEG-2. If you can get info that they have these codecs from their message board or forums, go right ahead. 640x480 seems to be the best size for bigscreen projection, but if you can't go out of 320x240 thats ok too. Most big screens and tv's will blur the image slightly so it doesnt look as grainy/blocky. On the audio side of the things, its best to keep uncompressed and unmodified audio in your amv, unless your track is very quiet THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH. If the track is loud then quiet, then loud again, you've got a problem, mainly because the techies will turn it up, and then when it gets loud again, they risk damaging the speakers.

I hope this was of some help.

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Ok, from what I saw at AWA 8. Encode in the most widely used formats, even if its a big con where they MIGHT have obscure Codec X, encode in MPEG-1 or DivX. There's no telling if they have Huffyuv or MPEG-2. If you can get info that they have these codecs from their message board or forums, go right ahead. 640x480 seems to be the best size for bigscreen projection, but if you can't go out of 320x240 thats ok too. Most big screens and tv's will blur the image slightly so it doesnt look as grainy/blocky. On the audio side of the things, its best to keep uncompressed and unmodified audio in your amv, unless your track is very quiet THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH. If the track is loud then quiet, then loud again, you've got a problem, mainly because the techies will turn it up, and then when it gets loud again, they risk damaging the speakers.

I hope this was of some help.

Mpeg1 or DivX for the big screen!! I personally would rather send in a VHS tape before doing that. I think your best bet is to follow the rules and to the letter. I know in many contests that's not the case and that's when it becomes a problem. It also helps that the formats that are offered by AMV contests are understood by the coor-dinators to begin with. I feel that Mpeg2 and should be a problem if the right set of rules, settings, etc are provided

Vlad

[The Wired Knight]

While it sounds like a good idea to begin with it would be an extremley difficult guide to write due to the varying cons. Each con has its own thing in guidlines and judging and viewer response. So unfortunatley the field is a little bit too diverse in cons to write a thorough guide on the subject.

[alatri]

A lot of cons also change their set up from year to year, so a 'guide' would be obsolete right after writing. Beginning cons set up with the smaller plays and inside the vid rooms, then as they gather more attendees and knowledge for putting on cons, they up the technology and the rooms. On the other hand, there could probably be something for "general" convention showing types rather than specific conventions. Each convention AMV organizer should know roughly their own stats, so there's also mailing them individually to find out.

-- Larissa =^..^=

[CArnesen]

has anyone ever considered making a guide for submitting amv's to anime conventions? i mean as in optimizing your video for a con. What size/kind of screen will the videos be played on? how loud will the speakers be turn up? will the videos be play from a cd or VHS tape? (obviously i've never been to an amv contest at a con.) any tips and helpful information would be good for the guide too.

... hope that wasn't too off-topic

It sounds like your looking for two guides (both of which already exist).

The first guide is for AMV creators, and describes how to get the best quality out of their AMV... Check out AbsoluteDestiny & ErMaC's Technical Guides to All Things Audio and Video.

The second guide is for AMV contest coordinators, and describes how to put on an AMV contest. A document is in the AMV Creators group list on Yahoo!, but is only available for invited coordinators.

The best place to find out the requirements for a specific AMV contest is the actual contest website or you could email them .