Challenge closed... but Free bonus day!
 

DVC9 is now closed!

Thanks to everyone who participated! I've recieved films from the following people:

Ronn Kilby
Stacy Dudley
Daniel Kohl
Benjamin Durin
Bryan Wilkat
Bruce Foreman
Dick Mays
Kevin Randolph
Paul Firth
Bruce Broussard
Kris Holodak
Randall Allen
Jesse Steele
Marco Wagner
Jon Jones
Mitchell Stookey
Darryl Ahye
Lisa Parker
Dylan Couper
Mike Teutsch
Lorinda Norton

Due to Youtube difficulties (DVC is a work in progress) I'm giving everyone one more free day (TODAY) to make adjustments, re-renders, whatever. If possible, please don't change the link to your film. If you must, you must.

If your name isn't on the above list...

PANIC!!!!

Then send me your link.
Cheers!

Dylan

Re-renders for YouTube only or ALL formats of entries? Sir.

Hey... there's a guy with the same name as you on the list! How cool. :)

Cool, thanks for the extra time. I got my links submitted last night at the very tip top of the witching hour because I had spent so long waiting on confirmation of my YouTube upload.

It took a long time to get confirmation of the upload, and when I did, I was able to put the link up on my movie page, but when I checked the link this morning on YouTube, it still gave me a 'processing icon'. But I clicked on it anyway and it still worked. But I also found a fraction of a second audio drop in the middle that I couldn't figure out, so I went ahead and re-uploaded to YouTube....and this time, it gave me the correct icon.

Looks like I'm in business

(although it does take a really long time to load - probably because of the compression and size I used - but I'm happy with the image it gave me - especially for a YouTube video.)

-Jon

You can use today to work on getting higher quality renders for Youtube, or your own hosting.

If anyone wants to write up a FAQ on rendering for Youtube I'd like to read it. Mine went Ok, better than I expected.

Yeah, forgive me for peeking - I saw yours. It linked to mine when I posted.....and well....I just had to.

Very clean imagery - far superior to what YouTube does on its own IMO.

And it loaded fast too.

Mine loads really slow - but for now I'll take the tradeoff considering I really like the compression I ended up with.



My two biggest problems with what I see on YouTube is that the imagery is usually very pixelated or poorly encoded, and the audio loses sync.

I did alot of online reading for YouTube optimization.

What I ended up using was the following:

I exported my movie into a Quicktime file with the H.264 codec. I sized it to 320x240 since that is what YouTube will do to it anyway. I made it a really high data rate, and I think I made the audio AAC at 48khz in mono.

My file ended up being about 35 MB which I then uploaded to YouTube.

As I noted, it takes a long time to load. I start it and then go get some coffee before watching - that give it time.

If anyone else posts a better scheme, I might re-upload it, but for now, I am pretty happy with the results, just not the wait time.

-Jon

I've found that MPEG1 progressive conent converts very well into YouTube....

Last name and Snag
 

Dylan - it's Ronn -- Ronn Kilby. Last name is Kilby.

And I have a snag in that I leave Friday for 3 weeks in Africa. That means I will not be able to watch and vote after late Thursday PM, Pacific time. I assume you will not have all the entries available for viewing/judging at that time. Should I withdraw my entry?

Even if you aren't here to vote, you are still eligible to win. No need to withdraw.

Sorenson Squeeze test
 

So far I have tried MPG1, MPG2, WMV, Quicktime, and even downloaded a free trial version of Sorenson Sqeeze.

The best result I got (once uploaded on Youtube) was the WMV, in which I used Windows Movie Maker. I imported my final AVI file in Movie Maker and resaved it as a WMV for broadband. Others look better when I view them from my hard drive but when I upload them they turn out very bad.

Never-the-less, I gave it my best!

Good luck everyone.

Stacy

I found this website useful in compressing for youtube. The tutorial is written for Final Cut Pro but all the info about calculating bit rate would transfer to most editing programs I am sure. The website is: http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_you_tube.html

Thanks thats great! However, I see that you have kept this information for yourself until "after" the competion deadline. Hmmm.....??? :)

Stacy

Thanks Dylan
 

I feel bad about not being able to give feedback. Will any entries be officially posted before Friday? (Already looked at a few on YouTube). Would it be bad form to post comments in the feedback threads anyway?

Dylan, I say we burn him at the stake! What do you think? ... Anyone who sneaks or snuck a peek should be punished severely or at least be severely scorned ... or ... but not disqualified or anything ... just made to feel really bad.


Is it possible that you may have to rethink the idea of releasing all entries at once, and having the requirement that they be posted on YouTube at the same time. I'm not sure that both concepts are cohabit-able (I like that word!).

I'm also wondering what is so bad about the entries leaking out as opposed to a set release date, since we are all voting on them anyway. The prize ceremony is fully under your control. If people reveal their entries too early they may risk someone else copying them, but that's it, and it would be their own fault. Or am I missing something?

Yeah, it certainly is a quandry. I watched Dylan's when I posted mine becuase the link automatically came up. Such will likely be the case when DVCers put in similar keywords in the posting. While I think I saw what appeared to be a few additional links to what I am guessing were more entries yesterday, I resisted the urge to click on them - which is difficult on YouTube - as I am trying really hard to wait until they are officially released.

But YouTube makes the waiting time a quandry. If I am able to wait, then I have the advantage of perhaps seeing some of the posted videos the way the poster intended it to be viewed. Generally, the YouTube option was ruled in as an option of convenience.

I remember back in DVC3, I posted my entry onto a themed website that helped tell the story of my entry on the site itself. Not so with this one. Making the movie was demanding enough. However, the link I sent in was to a hub site to which I posted my movie. From the hub, I give the viewer a number of viewing options, including several versions for direct download (although in testing, it seems to make the file a hqx archive that has to be unstuffed - which I can't figure out - but it still works.)

I am currently working on a production notes page and a blooper reel that I hope to add to the site before Dylan publishes the link - that way if anyone wishes to see more than just the YouTube option....well, there it is.

-Jon


BTW: yeah, cohabit-able is a good word.

What would help is if Dylan made a rule that the keywords "dvchallenge" "dvc", the theme name and anything related are disallowed in youtube posts until the link is released.

that would stop a lot of the YouTube auto-linking issues.

That's a good idea Lisa, and it would probably work.

But I think it would hinder Dylan's ultimate goal of making us all rich and famous by having us be discovered on YouTube. It's all about exposure, if we hide our entries; that may defeat that purpose.

I still am not clear about why they should all be released at once.

In the beginning Dylan and his crew where doing the judging, and I think he wanted to present the entire competition as an event, and to maintain a kind of suspense. I think he is also power hungry, and enjoys watching us twitch and whine, pleading with him to release the entries. (strangely enough he hasn't jumped into this discussion) I think that (the suspense part) is a cool idea, but I still think that there will be enough suspense (and power monging for Dylan) with the announcing of the winners. In my opinion we should feel free to watch the entries as they are posted. People who post early will get the benefit of more concentrated viewing and maybe more comments.

Actually, it wouldn't really hurt all that much. Say everyone posted the weekend of the theme release (yeah right), they'd only have a week or maybe two at most before Dylan officially released the links. Once the link is released, the users could feel free to add the dvc tags to their videos and get all the accompanying exposure levels. It's quick and easy to change youtube "tags" on a video.

(shh... I'm building suspense)

DVC Feedback
 

Hey, I guess it's open season on all the shorts, since it is trivial to find them now. I'm putting up my feedback thread and am going to start watching the ones that I can comment on now.

If this disqualifies me from anything, I just have to say, my tenth grade art teacher warned me that no good would come from my cheater tendancies.

youtube is great!

Go for it!

I'm right behind you.

I came into this thing, seeing the rules, thinking that the minute the YouTube versions go up, it's public. At the same time I did NOT release my links (bigger better sizes and formats) to the public or put them on any of my websites yet. So I was unsure, but YouTube pretty much kills any privacy.

True. I'll work on that for next time....
In the meantime, I'll start releasing the films Monday, if people could hold back on the feedback threads until then, it would be cool.

Great! You got it. No more from me until then.



One solution to the YouTube thing - there is a privacy switch I believe -google video has one.