HD AMV Questionaire

[Nya-chan Production]

I would prefer that cons stay away from HD content for a few years. To ensure accurate playback for all videos, I think all the videos would have to be converted to the same standard. If this standard is h264 then I would like to see that as the submission standard or the coordinators convert everything to it. However, I don't believe cons can accurately and reliably convert submissions to an HD format correctly. I don't think most people can. Sure you can run it through Zarxgui but what if you run into an issue? I don't think people have the technical know how to fix encoding issues with h264 just yet. It's already difficult doing so with MPEG2, I have a hard time believing that h264 would be any easier. Not to mention the number of HD videos compared to SD videos is still much lower IMO.

h264 encoding is actually a lot easier than mpeg-2 encoding, from my experience, with almost no screw-ups possible, only quality issue, which can be solved if you have enough time and HDD space (just setting the quantizer low enough).

And the playback issue is only regarding 1080p sources. 720p playback can be provided with way cheaper devices ;x

[Ileia]

AMVs aren't all that popular in the grand scheme of anime fandom so I also doubt a con is going to shell out thousands of dollars for AMVs when they don't need to, even more so when the majority of a the submissions aren't even in HD to begin with.

And the way a lot of conventions are going, even if they had HD equipment, the AMV department would likely take a backseat to other "more important" venues that needed it.

[Kai Stromler]

1 - If you dont edit in HD, why are you not editing in HD? Is it because of the sources you use are not available in HD or is it because your system cannot handle it or it becomes an inconvenience at times?

2 - If you do edit in HD, what method do you use? Do you bait and switch or edit directly off the 720p or 1080p? Do you edit in both 720p and 1080p? Are you restricted to only 720p at the moment?

3 - How do you like editing in HD? Is the extra render time and larger file sizes worth it with your current system?

4 - Do you watch AMVs in HD or grab the lower res or both?

5 - How are conventions adapting HD into their AMV showings and is it a priority at your con?

1. What I don't edit in HD is because the source isn't natively in HD. Upscaling (and, usually, changing the aspect ratio) stuff unnecessarily on the pre-process end is in "seriously, kill yourself" territory. You're not putting any relevant data back in the stream, let people blow it up as big as they want out of the final product and save yourself the diskspace. I'm not sure that I'd ever be motivated to hunt up HD versions of something I had in SD for the purposes of a video; the print that I've seen is what prompts the idea, and if the HD print is materially different, I now have a large pile of stuff that is sparkling and useless. And if it's not, I spent how much on exactly what again?

2. I edit HD the same way as anything else; directly from Lags files cut out of the source. You have to be conscious about what kind of source volume this generates, but the way I do source collection, I generally end up with 200-300% of the eventual output filesize, usually less than 20GB, and harddrives are cheap.

3. Editing in HD is "worth it" because I can continue to make the videos I want to make, even if the input source is in HD. In my particular process, most of the time spent in production is dependent on the level of damage on the source coming in, and how big the source pool is, so the resolution, as long as it's at a level (i.e., less than 1080p) that I can actually work with, doesn't have a huge effect on the editing process or the time to completion. Whether it takes 8 hours to mix down a HD video for distribution, or 4 hours for the same operation on a SD video, I still have to set it to run overnight. This isn't really an issue for me.

4. For the videos I watch, I pick the best resolution available short of 1080p. I can't really watch video at that resolution reliably, but up to 720p is fine, and if the editor puts out a HD version, I assume they've got a reason for it, even if only "the source was in HD".

5. I don't do enough HD projects, nor submit to enough conventions, to really have a handle on this. Of the two videos that I sent to AniBo this year, the HD video got in and the SD one didn't, but that may probably be due to the contest organizers wanting to troll the audience.

--K

[gotenks794]

I would prefer that cons stay away from HD content for a few years. To ensure accurate playback for all videos, I think all the videos would have to be converted to the same standard. If this standard is h264 then I would like to see that as the submission standard or the coordinators convert everything to it. However, I don't believe cons can accurately and reliably convert submissions to an HD format correctly. I don't think most people can. Sure you can run it through Zarxgui but what if you run into an issue? I don't think people have the technical know how to fix encoding issues with h264 just yet. It's already difficult doing so with MPEG2, I have a hard time believing that h264 would be any easier. Not to mention the number of HD videos compared to SD videos is still much lower IMO.

h264 encoding is actually a lot easier than mpeg-2 encoding, from my experience, with almost no screw-ups possible, only quality issue, which can be solved if you have enough time and HDD space (just setting the quantizer low enough).

This. I still don't really know how to properly encode an MPEG2 with out a lot of assistance.

[Kitsuner]

I would prefer that cons stay away from HD content for a few years. To ensure accurate playback for all videos, I think all the videos would have to be converted to the same standard. If this standard is h264 then I would like to see that as the submission standard or the coordinators convert everything to it. However, I don't believe cons can accurately and reliably convert submissions to an HD format correctly. I don't think most people can. Sure you can run it through Zarxgui but what if you run into an issue? I don't think people have the technical know how to fix encoding issues with h264 just yet. It's already difficult doing so with MPEG2, I have a hard time believing that h264 would be any easier. Not to mention the number of HD videos compared to SD videos is still much lower IMO.

h264 encoding is actually a lot easier than mpeg-2 encoding, from my experience, with almost no screw-ups possible, only quality issue, which can be solved if you have enough time and HDD space (just setting the quantizer low enough).

This. I still don't really know how to properly encode an MPEG2 with out a lot of assistance.

I always found Scintilla's guide extremely simple to follow. Most of the process is just copypasta.

[mirkosp]

2 - If you do edit in HD, what method do you use? Do you bait and switch or edit directly off the 720p or 1080p? Do you edit in both 720p and 1080p? Are you restricted to only 720p at the moment?

UTVideo clips make it blazing fast both with 720p and 1080p for me. With lags, 720p editing was still smooth, but 1080p was kinda choppier at times.

3 - How do you like editing in HD? Is the extra render time and larger file sizes worth it with your current system?

I don't really notice any difference between SD and HD editing, really, mostly cause I hardly do many effects at the same time, so it's pretty easy on the system.

4 - Do you watch AMVs in HD or grab the lower res or both?

Depends on the sources that the AMV was edited with (upscaled or not) and/or codecs used in the encode. Honestly, most blu-ray discs are pretty sad. If you buy funimation BDs, chances are that it's upscaled from a 480p master (a good 80% of their blu-rays, I'd say). If you're buying Japanese blu-rays, there are still a lot of 480/540 upscales, and the rest is stuff upscaled from 720. Pure 1080 is almost nonexistant (I mean, it's really really rare to find actual 1080p detail in anime). Sure, text is almost always rendered at 1080p even on 480p upscales, but the drawings are still low-detail, and that's what really matters, so yeah...

[ngsilver]

2 -
Generally I take the material and make a full quality lags encode that I edit with. I can deal with both 720 and 1080 fairly easily, though 1080 is a little on the slow side generally. Most of what I work with in the end is 720 anyway.

3 -
For me, the best quality I can work with on my end makes a better looking product after I'm done editing and make the final release and convention encodes. Even if in the end I scale down the video to 480p it will look better. So if my source is HD I'll edit in HD. If it's not HD then I'll edit at it's res. Though I'd like a more powerful PC to make the encoding time quicker.

4 -
Generally I grab all versions. I like to keep different quality versions for different applications. If I'm watching on my own at home or in a convention setting using my more beefier PCs I'll watch the HD versions. However, if I'm watching using an older PC or one that can't quite handle HD very well (like my laptop, it kind of studders on 1080p content) then I switch to the lower res material. In fact, when I spin videos for Youma's VAT Dance or any other situation where I use my VJ equipment I wind up using 480p material as it plays back better and lets me scratch and what not if I need to.

5 -
I've seen many conventions start accepting HD videos. Many still don't have the equipment to show them (projectors or switching systems that max out at 1280x1024 or 1024x768.) At ACEN this year we started to accept 720p videos only if they were sent in using mp4, however at the con we were still restricted by our projector and switcher's resolution. Nonetheless we still played those files. I've been pushing to get better equipment for Youma's VAT myself. In fact, last year our projector was good enough to handle HD content (we had the same projectors that main programming had in fact) and we're going to be getting the same projector this year. I'm in negotiations with our tech company to get a video switcher that can handle the HD resolutions as well. We're actually trying to go HD throughout the whole convention. It's all about pushing our budget and seeing what we can get.

I still think we're a few years out in having HD really become a standard across the board at many conventions. I think one of the big things that need to change in order for this to happen is coordinators moving away from using the netstream cards and moving away from mpeg2 as a standard. Grant it, moving to .264 or another HD codec as a standard requires more system resources and a beefier PC to decode. Also it requires a better understanding on the new encoding methods by coordinators and entrants. We're still a few years out on that I think, but it is catching on. As the availability of HD content and resources to rip it becomes more commonplace I think we'll see more of this.

[requiett]

2 - If you do edit in HD, what method do you use? Do you bait and switch or edit directly off the 720p or 1080p? Do you edit in both 720p and 1080p? Are you restricted to only 720p at the moment?

--I demux MKVs and edit with the h264 file directly (I force the time-coding in the demuxer). I'm more than capable of editing in 1080p (i7 920 CPU @ 3.33 ghz, dual Radeon 5870s, 6 gb Corsair Dominator @ 1666 mhz), but I've only released videos in 720p due to org limitations.


3 - How do you like editing in HD? Is the extra render time and larger file sizes worth it with your current system?

--Editing in 720p is smoother on my current system than editing in 480p was on my older system. No issues here.


4 - Do you watch AMVs in HD or grab the lower res or both?

--Always HD if it's available.


5 - How are conventions adapting HD into their AMV showings and is it a priority at your con?

--I don't submit anything to cons, personally. Bunch of commercialized shit. I went to one. I'll probably never go again. However I have had a lot of people ask if they could use show my vids at cons and I have no problem with that.

[NeoQuixotic]

2) I can edit 720p Lagariths no problem unless you start getting many layers or effects heavy. For 1080p I've been messing around using Cineform's NeoScene that I use for HDSLRs with my Blu-ray rips.

3) Editing in HD is overall easier. I have a good system so rendering isn't all that bad, and since most HD sources are progressive and very clean it saves me time on de-interlacing and cleaning a lot.

4) I'll go for whatever the highest resolution there is available.

5) Not sure how my local con is working with HD. They don't have strict requirements for what is submitted though. From what I can remember they burn a DVD of the entries, meaning only SD viewing. But Phade plays the AMVs for panels and misc events off his laptop/PC, so if they were in HD it is only limited by the resolution of the projector being used.

[Nya-chan Production]

This. I still don't really know how to properly encode an MPEG2 with out a lot of assistance.

I always found Scintilla's guide extremely simple to follow. Most of the process is just copypasta.

Still, it's a guide you need to follow and doesn't cover some basic fields (like using flags, optimising the quality, etc) - I struggle with those every year when I send mpeg2 to AWA Pro :>