AMV Editing: A dying hobby (?)

[Ileia]

When I post an a-m-v.org link to Facebook, it doesn't generate a direct video window that the viewer that can then click on to watch it directly in their timeline on their phone. There's one of the Org's first problems.

I'm curious as to what services actually do this... In my experience 9/10 videos I see on YouTube are blocked via mobile devices because of copyright claims on the audio.

Stop using the official youtube app. All AMVs work fine on mobiles in other youtube apps.

I don't use the official Youtube app. I've tried several others and I'm still blocked. You got a specific app in mind? This would be very useful for me >_>

[AceD]

I don't use the official Youtube app. I've tried several others and I'm still blocked. You got a specific app in mind? This would be very useful for me >_>

PlayTube, FREEdi and NextVid all work on android, my phone is android so I know they do.

iOS I'm told ProTube and Jasmine work. I assume iTube might do. I can't test iOS though.

[Ileia]

Sweet, thanks, I'll try em out.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Yea, I never actually used the Youtube app itself, only Chrome (which detects a mobile version and applies mobile version blocks).

When I post an a-m-v.org link to Facebook, it doesn't generate a direct video window that the viewer that can then click on to watch it directly in their timeline on their phone. There's one of the Org's first problems.

I'm curious as to what services actually do this... In my experience 9/10 videos I see on YouTube are blocked via mobile devices because of copyright claims on the audio.

Err, yeah, I'm actually pretty certain that specific Youtube mobile players don't block videos due to copyright and that copyright blocks are globally applied to the entire YouTube system...

Uh... no. A lot of agreements were signed recently (this year) that allow videos to play just fine on desktop systems, but not on mobile devices. You'd get around that by writing an app (or a browser) that forges a user-agent identifier to say it's really a desktop system and not a smartphone or other mobile device.

Most of what I have on my channel right now, in fact, won't play on a devices that identifies itself as a mobile device.

Apps don't even enter into it, though, as the quote i replied to was talking about generating an in-line video inside a facebook timeline - which would have to be done in a browser, not in an app, right? Or have they integrated the youtube app into the facebook app somehow?

[ShodanKid]

I couldn't tell you what rathole I went into to find this thread (this is the first forum I've ever been 'active' on) but I'm just so glad I found a place where people are expressing the same concerns I had.

Just over 3 months ago before AX, a friend who was joining me said, 'You know what an AMV is, right?' Since she wanted to see the competition. To not look entirely stupid I threw amv into YouTube and watched the first thing that popped up...and immediately said....'Dafuq?!?'

I won't mention the video, but to this day I still don't care for it. I can't stop watching it. And given what I've seen...I'm starting to like it a lot more.

I love everything about AMVs. But yes, you have to swim through mostly mediocrity to find the gems. I like the interesting ideas (even if they don't quite work) the obvious coherent effort that goes into creating something out of pieces of something else. But we also have a burgeoning culture of maniacs who think it's cool to throw every effect they can...if you know what you're doing, it can work...usually it doesn't. Yeah, I have some scholarly reasons why specifically, but it comes down to no one is taking the time to find their voice to create something meaningful...instead, if it ain't flashy and OMG I SPENT 80 HOURS MASK MASK MASK MASK....time probably better spent fixing a bad edit. You don't have a solid edit, you have nothing.

Community turns into fraternities of people who really only do things to impress their friends, which eats away at places like this to be at all beneficial to people like me. I rely heavily on scouring opinions that is can trust and with the kind of work I explained above I can't use those opinions as a reliable source...my most viewed video is the most recent video I posted and it is also the video I have with the least amount of ratings. And frankly I don't care about the latter...I care that nearly 2000 people got to see it and I hope enjoyed it. I care that despite low views on YouTube for all my videos people have literally used search terms to specifically find my video. That is what matters to me...not the flashy weirdness I see in every video (especially MEPs) that make them all look the same, but that the goal and voice I'm trying to develop that is uniquely me is affecting someone enough that they heard about my video or saw it that they had to find it again.

AMVs aren't dying. But the art is. Every after effects tutorial is some dude editing MW footage it seems. Everyone and their mom seems to have a 'studio' with some flash bangin' studio. The org is hard for newcomers to break into and I've kinda just used it as a thought and video repository. And in the meantime...I'm using this while I work on other projects and am not editing live action footage to keep the gears greased and learn some new tricks. Oh how much I want to toss something to someone I trust and say, 'Thoughts' and get back some abstract answer like, 'Beh, no reading' but instead I have to have these conversations with myself (that was a real back and forth I had with myself). I was so focused on the mainstream I didn't think to chop down my first video (an arduous short film instead of music video I guess) and grew too clever for my own good with the second (though it's my friend's absolute favorite). I've learned so many lessons, and my ideas are expanding into new corners I never thought to look. It becomes rough that with so much effort in making sure pacing is right, placement, music nor video overpower or why they do, the flow of images, the composition, and even if it doesn't quite hit the mark....

Is outpaced by the cut and paste and apply Twitch and done! job is regarded with even a second look (unless it did come out awesome). Even my throwaway work is deeply rooted in Matching with the music source. That's just how I handle it. Others handle it differently to work with their style. In the end I just want my work to transcend audio and visual...make a reason for it to exist. In some cases, these stories that come into my head when I listen to a song I can actually show everyone else what I'm thinking of! Maybe I have a story, or a joke, or something that looks damn cool.

There are plenty more AMVs to be done. AMVs may be lost a bit to GMVs, but the interest is out there. And there are still plenty of ideas...not every AMV needs to be a revolution. And the Org may not be THE place for now, but it won't wither away into that dark night and disappear. Not when 10 year old material is still being referenced in modern day (which 10 years in Internet years mine as well have lived with the dinosaurs).

Edit on. Try and stop me.

[chambeyc]

The Online Mekka of AMVs are definitely the Russians and the French.

Sadly, the french community is dying as well right now, at least 2 of the biggest website, http://www.ketsuryu.com/ (suddenly stop being updated a year ago), and http://forum.amv-france.com/ (which forum is barely active right now .... pretty much like here).
I think some teams may still be active though, like Soul's team and Sora to kasai.


If you ask me why the hobby is dying, I would say it's a consequence of the communities and forums dying:
New people who want to edit will now instinctively go first on Youtube before searching for website like the org. But even if it's a convenient place for streaming, youtube is not a place where you can discuss a hobby, learn things from FAQs, get some friends with the same passion, etc. It's not a forum, and the social interactions are limited to the comments.
So I think most of newcomers now edit one or two videos on their own, get some brief comments on streaming websites, then get bored at the third video, and just quit at the fourth, since there's no one/no place to discuss about it. Only very few of them will be motivated enough to search for the org, and to subscribe (especially since now the forum seems so inactive).

Consequently newcomers don't get enough experience to bloom and create only few average-at-best videos before quitting, and with older editors moving on with their life there is simply no way the flow of things can change. The only surviving website is AMVNews.ru, thanks to wide range of activities (various contests, daily news), and the russian editors being numerous enough to stand on their own (in term of feedback and forum activity).

[Tsu!]

I have mixed feelings.

Firstly, I'm not happy that the AMVs.org community has started to get quiet. But that being said, almost all websites that revolve around a forum/board system have gone the same way. I consider myself lucky when I find a forum that has a dozen active members these days, and AMVs.org has way more than that. It's the way of the internet, sadly, instant gratification, modernization, blah blah blah... I still enjoy the conversations that forums inspire that 140-character-limits just don't seem to.

My mixed reaction mostly comes from the lack of AMVs being uploaded here. In some ways, that's disappointing, but in others, I don't mind at all. In the heyday here it was possible to simply tap in an anime and browse through and find something pretty quickly that would be pretty decent, whether you based it on reviews or simply "This looks interesting". At the same time, this place also became the repository for hundreds (or thousands) of half-attempted, windows media maker, color-strobing videos- or worse yet, vids that were completely un-edited except for slapping a song onto an episode. (I'm not saying it's impossible to make a good vid in WMM; it's just that many of the ones I'm referring to were people jumping on the bandwagon and not really caring beyond that.) Nowadays, most of those cruddy videos tend to get tossed onto YouTube instead, and don't come here. And I'm really okay with that.

For me, personally, I've seen two sides of the coin to uploading on YouTube vs uploading here. I prefer here; I've gotten more feedback and responses, and YouTube comments just don't carry the oomph as they too tend to follow short little one-liner responses or simply clicking a like button. Bah. Some folks have mentioned the restrictions on who can view videos depending on video and audio content, but it's kind of amusing to me. I'm sure plenty of people here remember when AMVs.org got slapped with that legal threat that resulted in taking down all videos containing Evanescence, Seether, and basically any other artist under that label... yet those vids thrive on the YouTubes.

As for the original topic title... I don't think AMVs will ever really die. As long as people enjoy editing and enjoy reproducing their mental image onto the computer screen so others can see it, AMVs will continue. The contests and "fame" are a bonus. But didn't this hobby start out with individuals deciding they had a great idea and piecing it together individually, not as a community or a group, on their VCR-to-VCR system or the newfangled computer capture cards? As long as there's still people with that creative spark pushing them, AMVs will stick around.

[-Nfp]

i'm a bit late to this thread and i also stopped editing actively a few years ago but i browse youtube from time to time and there are tonnes of people still making amvs on there, and even more just simply watching them.

I just think this website failed to adapt to the times and fell behind. Same thing can be said about other sites. But also a lot of the amv editor mainstays moved on from the hobby as well, and rather than for newer generations moving onto the org and replacing them which was happening previously, instead, they're doing other things like sticking to youtube.

Like someone else said, competitions at festivals and conventions is peaking at the moment. But the org just doesn't seem to have that aura about it anymore. It use to be the only place you could come to if you were truly serious about editing, wanted the best feedback, wanted to join the best community and whatnot. Not so much anymore

[dreamawake]

One suggestion: don't look at the .org as definitive evidence of anything. AMVing is alive and well. The .org is not; it's not entirely youtube's fault, but I think to suggest that AMVing is dying is premature. In particular, if you ever go to a major convention AMV event, you'll see plenty of evidence otherwise. While .org activity has dropped, you'll see that as far as contest and event participation, or as far as even actual videos released, AMVs are alive and well. It's just that the .org has not kept up with the times. There is no lack of either AMVs or fan interest, just that it's moved elsewhere.

This.

[VCEnder]

I'm an editor that was pretty active here for several years back around 2006-2009 (forgot my login info). Back then people were arguing and making all kinds of predictions as to what the effect of streaming videos on the org would. My prediction then is the same as my assessment now - the org's focused has changed from content production and consumption to more of a hobbyist's forum. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing