[Zarxrax]

At Anime Weekend Atlanta 2012, Zarxrax and SSGWNBTD faced off in an AMV Hell-themed "Iron Editor" competition.
In this competition, we were each given only 2 hours to create a video using the following 8 sources (which were revealed before the competition):

Azumanga Daioh
Nichijou
Berserk
Evangelion 2.22
Gurren Lagann movie 2
Panty and Stocking
Puni Puni Poemy
Redline

In addition, we had to also utilize the secret ingredient, which was only revealed at the start of the competition. The secret ingredient was:
AMV Hell 3: The Motion Picture

YouTube: http://youtu.be/aHliHE-g6RA
Download: http://mir.cr/0ILMPAB8


Credits

SSGWNBTD's videos:

Evangelion 2.22
Ludo
Anything for You

Nichijou
Rammstein
B********

Redline
Cake
The Distance

AMV Hell 3
Dethklok
Dethharmonic

Evangelion 2.22
Neon Trees
Animal

Azumanga Daioh
Ke$ha
Dinosaur

AMV Hell 3
Paul Stanley
Live to Win

Puni Puni Poemy
Avril Lavigne
What the Hell

Berserk
Betzefer
Doomsday

Redline
Dethklok
Dethharmonic

AMV Hell 3
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
In the Hall of the Mountain King

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt
Schoolyard Heroes
Violence Is All The Rage

Gurren Lagann
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Audio


Zarxrax's videos:

Azumanga Daioh
Ol' Dirty Bastard
Goin' Down

Berserk
Airplane!
Sound clip

Nichijou
Filligar
Sunflower Kid

Panty and Stocking
Beyonce
Halo

Puni Puni Poemi
Third Impact
Squid Girl

Redline
Lyude
F-Zero X Big Blue remix

Gurren Lagann Movie 2
Futurama
sound clip

Evangelion 2.22
Plastiscines
Bitch

Nichijou
System of a Down
Deer Dance

AMV Hell 3
f(x)
Electric Shock

AMV Hell 3
Psy
Gangnam Style

Puni Puni Poemi
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
PONPONPON

Redline
KISS
Lick It Up

Gurren Lagann Movie 2
Mega Man
Drill Man Jazz remix

[Shuiia]

Nice job you guys did in just 2 hours.

[Haar]

Well, there were some good clips in there, but a lot of them felt a little bland to me. Though I can see how working under pressure can lead to some rushing having to be done, so it's understandable.

[Outlaw]

You (SSGWNBTD) did a disservice by cutting Redline/Cake so short. Anchorman skit was the best I think out of yours. Zarx, best of yours was Lick It Up and while it wasn't perfect, that's the kind of thing I personally want to see out of people using Gangnam Style, the beat + the well, body beating parts could've lined up better.

[Azure_Xeq]

If it was a competition, who won?

[Zarxrax]

Me

[LawRayLiet]

Best of the Bunch IMO
-----------------------
Nichijou
Rammstein
B********
[Ha, pretty funny.]

Azumanga Daioh
Ke$ha
Dinosaur
[Hilarious, this is my favorite from SSG.]

Gurren Lagann
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Audio
[Haha Pretty much sums up the whole show.]

Nichijou
Filligar
Sunflower Kid
[Simple, but hilarious.]

Nichijou
System of a Down
Deer Dance
[Haha Awesome, my favorite from Zarx.]

Honorable Mentions
---------------------
These last two I thought were well done. If I wasn't judging based on laughs I probably would've included them.

Evangelion 2.22
Plastiscines
Bitch

Evangelion 2.22
Ludo
Anything for You

[Guthix]

lulz were had

[N.P.C.C.]

I can honestly say if that was me working under those limitations, i might have frozen solid...Do nerds chant "Choke?"

[Haar]

I can honestly say if that was me working under those limitations, i might have frozen solid...
Didn't you once tell me that you said you could clear a bunch of stuff out of your backlog in a single night?

Do nerds chant "Choke?"
I wouldn't put it past them.

[N.P.C.C.]

Didn't you once tell me that you said you could clear a bunch of stuff out of your backlog in a single night?


Can't do it when i have little to no ideas for the shows listed. Now if it was hentai...

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

YOU GOT BOOST POWER!

I have GOT to get my hands on that Big Blue remix... (to the Googles!)

Also I noticed that many of the clips had pixelized aliasing that is characteristic of using nearest-neighbor and/or box up/downscaling. Was this due to the time constraints, meaning you didn't want to waste any CPU time using something better like Bicubic?

[Zarxrax]

Also I noticed that many of the clips had pixelized aliasing that is characteristic of using nearest-neighbor and/or box up/downscaling. Was this due to the time constraints, meaning you didn't want to waste any CPU time using something better like Bicubic?

If you are watching on youtube, well thats just youtube being youtube.
This problem shouldn't appear on the actual file.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Indeed you're right about that. That's very strange since I've never experienced such an issue myself with uploading YouTube videos...

Anyway, I also noticed that the audio was not leveled across all the clips like it has been ever since I mentioned Replay Gain and/or WaveGain, but I'm guessing that's due to the 2 hours limit and causing much of the entire thing to be a rush-job?

[Zarxrax]

Indeed you're right about that. That's very strange since I've never experienced such an issue myself with uploading YouTube videos...

Anyway, I also noticed that the audio was not leveled across all the clips like it has been ever since I mentioned Replay Gain and/or WaveGain, but I'm guessing that's due to the 2 hours limit and causing much of the entire thing to be a rush-job?

Yea pretty much.
And I'm not sure whats up with youtube. It always resamples the resolution on the videos for some reason, and makes it all jaggy.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

In my experience it has everything to do with the video codec settings that causes any wonkiness. If you ever care and have the time & bandwidth, perhaps try uploading a version with x264 set to lossless as a test.

In other news, I cannot believe I've never heard of Redline - it practically looks and sounds like "F-Zero: The Movie". Now I have the urge to play some F-Zero GX but I'm sad my CPU isn't fast enough to emulate GX at fullspeed, because that game is absolutely GLORIOUS when rendered in HD w/ AA+AF... *sigh* (the sad part? I own a working Trinitron SDTV, so my GameCube and Wii already look perfectly fine)

[Zuiichi]

takes me 2 hours just to make one clip let alone 14

[ThatsNotMyName_studio]

Congratulations Zarxrax!
I am really glad I didn't have to judge this competition
(They're really glad I didn't judge this competition!)

Amazing amazing work from both.
I think I liked the "Airplane" clip the best.

[Sir Fluffykins]

I liked the Grown Man nakedclip, the I'm a Bitch and for some reason I found the Gangnam clip funny but I don't know why >_<

Also, you've given me some songs to look for :D

[Antonio Black]

Wow, the secret ingredient was a preexisting AMV. I would have never expected that.

[jinzo64]

it is realy amazing,
The fact that you both managed to make so many clips in 2 hours I have trouble making one in that time frame.

[scytherlevel15]

hey azure it's me kevin

[#71]

Damn... something's wrong with IRL. I mean... are there "Creating AMV in Space" contest already?

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Hey Zarxrax, I'll love you forever if you upload the original copy of the Redline "Big Blue" video clip!

...otherwise I feel like I'll have to rip your video, run it through a super-fancy upscaler (S-Spline Max), mux in the original FLAC/320kbps MP3, and upload it myself; and honestly that'd be kind of a pain to do. >_>

[Haar]

Why bother upscaling it?

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Because 360p on YouTube is considerably crappier quality than 720p due to the smaller bitrate. Also 720p and higher has the highest audio quality YouTube provides (even more so on their WebM encodes).

But heck I was actually considering ripping the raw video from the original source and re-creating the AMV video clip, but honestly that'd be quite the pain... but I'll do it if I'm feeling OCD enough, or if my super-fancy upscaler doesn't look so great with a non-lossless source...or if, ya know, people yell at me that it's upscaled. :P

[Sir Fluffykins]

My God...if someone could recreate AMV Hell 1-5 in HD... 0_0

[Zarxrax]

Hey Zarxrax, I'll love you forever if you upload the original copy of the Redline "Big Blue" video clip!

you know there is a download version in the first post?

[thedarkmessenger]

I have a question, how was the winner of the competition decided?

[adzman]

I won't go into too much detail, but it involved 14 chickens and a hatchet.

[Haar]

Because 360p on YouTube is considerably crappier quality than 720p due to the smaller bitrate. Also 720p and higher has the highest audio quality YouTube provides (even more so on their WebM encodes).
You've got a point. Youtube is pretty retarded with codecs, seeing as how it screws your audio up if you don't put videos in HD. That's why I've started putting download links to videos in descriptions.


But heck I was actually considering ripping the raw video from the original source and re-creating the AMV video clip, but honestly that'd be quite the pain... but I'll do it if I'm feeling OCD enough, or if my super-fancy upscaler doesn't look so great with a non-lossless source...or if, ya know, people yell at me that it's upscaled. :P
The Redline Blu-Ray is pretty cheap now, I think. At least that won't be too much of an issue.


My God...if someone could recreate AMV Hell 1-5 in HD... 0_0

90% of that would be upscaled footage. A bunch of those shows were made on 480p masters and it would be the same as putting a magnifying glass up to your hand and trying to say it was bigger. You didn't do anything other than zoom in. That, and a lot of the shows produced on cels aren't on Blu-Ray either, so someone would have to go back to the original film and remaster it piece by piece. And even the shows with HD masters would have the issue of someone acquiring all that footage and the flac rips of the songs used for the videos, assuming those even exist.

Short version: It ain't worth the trouble, let alone possible.

[Guthix]

how about a fushion of all the possible hd videos

[Haar]

Sure, why not? People eat up those HD re-releases all the time, after all. Well, for video games, at least. Of course, we'd need to get different editors to do them, seeing as how a lot of the clips with HD masters from AMV Hell 5 didn't look all that great to begin with, hinting that either the original editors had no idea how to obtain good footage, or had no idea how to encode.

But let's be honest, here. Who would want to go through all that trouble for something that will probably have very little reward other than a few enthusiasts downloading something they've already seen before, when they could be doing something that's actually productive?

[Guthix]

Sure, why not? People eat up those HD re-releases all the time, after all. Well, for video games, at least. Of course, we'd need to get different editors to do them, seeing as how a lot of the clips with HD masters from AMV Hell 5 didn't look all that great to begin with, hinting that either the original editors had no idea how to obtain good footage, or had no idea how to encode.

But let's be honest, here. Who would want to go through all that trouble for something that will probably have very little reward other than a few enthusiasts downloading something they've already seen before, when they could be doing something that's actually productive?

>making amvs is productice

>amvs give rewards

[Haar]

I get what you're saying here, and it's my fault for phrasing that so poorly, so let me address those points.

>making amvs is productice
Productive? No. More worthwhile than remaking videos that have already been done? Yes.

>amvs give rewards
Ego masturbation for some, fun for others. I fall into the latter category(mostly), but we know of many that fall into the former, which is a shame, really. I don't see why some, i.e., a few guys/girls on YouTube that got too popular for their own good, continue simply because it gets them attention, if they don't find editing to be enjoyable.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

you know there is a download version in the first post?
But not for just the "Redline - Big Blue" clip in its original quality before it got combined and re-encoded into the final AMV compilation.

No matter, I think I might just actually re-create the entire clip myself as a test project to see if I really have the software capabilities to do such a thing.


it would be the same as putting a magnifying glass up to your hand and trying to say it was bigger
Hence my mention of a "super-fancy" upscaler, particularly S-Spline Max. It's currently only used in offline rendering of images only, but you could re-purpose it for videos by exporting a video to image frames, do a batch upscale conversion to those frames, and then re-assemble those images back into a video.

[Zarxrax]

But not for just the "Redline - Big Blue" clip in its original quality before it got combined and re-encoded into the final AMV compilation.

No matter, I think I might just actually re-create the entire clip myself as a test project to see if I really have the software capabilities to do such a thing.

Well, whatever floats your boat. You could probably make a whole amv to it if you wanted. I just tossed the clip together in literally 5-10 minutes, I'm sure you could do better if you tried.
And I don't have it in HD quality.

[Jazean]

Bravo, an excellent display of ability for just 2 hours of work.

[ThatsNotMyName_studio]

Im actually curious where the audio files came from that they used: Provided? Downloaded? Brought with?

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Well, whatever floats your boat. You could probably make a whole amv to it if you wanted. I just tossed the clip together in literally 5-10 minutes, I'm sure you could do better if you tried.
Unfortunately "creativity" in darned near anything isn't really my forte - I'm very much an editor and "cleanup-er" with nearly anything I do. This means that I mentally would most likely not be able to make an entire AMV that could be considered halfway decent, even though I have the technical and physical capabilities to make one. I mean the most creative thing I probably do is making seemless loop edits of songs, and that's very much a case of editing and making sure the song sounds and loops cleanly rather than any involvement in the actual artistic creation.

On the other hand, I am a huge fan of the F-Zero games (the anime and handheld F-zero games were decently good too) and have much experience with basically everything about them (gameplay, music, characters, adrenaline rush, etc.) so perhaps I could rely on the "feeling" of general F-Zero awesomeness as a judgement of what works and what doesn't. For reference, the clip you made NAILS that "hot-blooded" F-Zero GAR-ness.


And I don't have it in HD quality.
Didn't need it, the idea was that the higher-quality source I have then the better quality the final result would be. I still have yet to actually watch Redline, but I did get my hands on it so hopefully I can watch it this week; then I'll be able to judge how difficult it would be to re-create the video clip (I don't know if you just used one entire scene or combined a bunch or whatnot).

[Zarxrax]

(I don't know if you just used one entire scene or combined a bunch or whatnot).

I think its all from like a 5 minute section of the movie, and all the clips are in chronological order.

[Zarxrax]

Im actually curious where the audio files came from that they used: Provided? Downloaded? Brought with?

We brought our own audio.
Here is essentially how it works:
Something like 2 weeks before the contest, we receive hard drives in the mail containing lossless copies of all the video footage. And actually, we were each able to choose one of those video sources. I chose Azumanga Daioh and SSG chose Berserk. For each source, we essentially got the full movie or whatever episodes would appear on a single dvd. So roughly 1.5 hours of footage for each of the 8 sources, or around 12 hours of footage total.

So, we were able to prepare however we wanted. Technically could have even edited videos as practice. But me and SSG are both lazy, so nothing like that happened.
I essentially just loaded each source in virtualdub, and held down the key that skips 50 frames forward. As the footage shot by at blazing speeds, I looked for interesting scenes and then jotted down the first ideas that came to mind. It took me about 2 hours to seek through all the footage and come up with about 10 ideas. I got a few other ideas randomly when I was just thinking about it throughout the day.
Thought process was something like this: "Hey, I just saw a clip of a girl with a long tongue. Maybe some song by KISS? They have long tongues."
Or "hey, there's a female octopus. I know a song about a squid girl"
Then I just gathered up the audio sources that I would need.
Yes, most of the ideas are lazy and uninspired. But a key element of the competition was that we had to use ALL the sources. So I had to go for some low-hanging fruit that would be quick to edit.

Also, there was the matter of the secret ingredient. Since we had no idea what it could be, I also gathered up a huge collection of hundreds of songs and brought them along with me, so I could be prepared for almost any situation.

I had originally planned to do "Gangnam style" with Berserk, using clips of people riding horses. After I saw what the secret ingredient was, I decided it would be better to make a clip with the "sexy lady".
There were also a handful of ideas that I couldn't get around to due to time constraints, such as Berserk with FreeCreditReport.com renaissance fair song, and clips of Evangelions running with audio of Usain Bolt running in a race.

SSG didn't really have time to prepare before the convention, due to working on amv hell 5 up to the last minute. He was up in the hotel room the day of the contest trying to come up with some ideas.

[Gleeman]

Finally got around to watching this last night.

Good: Not bad for a short-notice editing job

Bad: It used a song/clip idea I had for the next round of AMV Minis. :o

[ssgwnbtd]

I learned to use Adobe Premiere CS5 while competing in Iron Editor at AWA 2012. Copy/cut and paste don't work the same as they do in Premiere 6.0 at all. I should have brought all 28 MB of Premiere 6.0 portable on the IE drive with me and used it for the competition. It was really tough for me to do the edits I wanted to do. I could have made 4 minutes of jokes with better editing software and warmer clothes. It was freezing next to the screen. Also, I was hung over and had only eaten a taco and a chalupa all day. I feel like I could have brought more snippets of songs. There was a better Schoolyard Heroes song for Panty & Stocking. I'll probably just save the extra ideas for AMV Minis or AMV Hell 7.

[LawRayLiet]

http://i.imgur.com/aji0n.png

[Guthix]

I learned to use Adobe Premiere CS5 while competing in Iron Editor at AWA 2012. Copy/cut and paste don't work the same as they do in Premiere 6.0 at all. I should have brought all 28 MB of Premiere 6.0 portable on the IE drive with me and used it for the competition. It was really tough for me to do the edits I wanted to do. I could have made 4 minutes of jokes with better editing software and warmer clothes. It was freezing next to the screen. Also, I was hung over and had only eaten a taco and a chalupa all day. I feel like I could have brought more snippets of songs. There was a better Schoolyard Heroes song for Panty & Stocking. I'll probably just save the extra ideas for AMV Minis or AMV Hell 7.

did you ever submit a clip to minis before?

[ThatsNotMyName_studio]

We brought our own audio.
Here is essentially how it works:...

Very very interesting description of how that went down. It's hard for me to imagine putting those together in that time frame as is, let alone (if you would have had to) draw footage and prepare it
for editing. Azumaga seems like a natural preferred "Ingredient" for you as well =). SSG mentioned Premiere CS5. Is that what you had to work with?
Sorry so many questions, very curious on how that worked.

[Zarxrax]

did you ever submit a clip to minis before?
He submitted one to the live action episode. Got rejected.


Very very interesting description of how that went down. It's hard for me to imagine putting those together in that time frame as is, let alone (if you would have had to) draw footage and prepare it
for editing. Azumaga seems like a natural preferred "Ingredient" for you as well =). SSG mentioned Premiere CS5. Is that what you had to work with?
Sorry so many questions, very curious on how that worked.
Yea we edited in premiere CS5. That's what I normally use, so it was no big deal for me.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

So it turns out that Lyude, the guy that made the awesome Big Blue remix, took down his old site and has not uploaded any music on his new one. The old site's music page was archived on the Wayback Machine, but none of the actual song files were.

FUUUUUUUUUUUU- (╯°□°）╯︵

So uh, Zarxrax, could you perhaps be so kind to send me a copy of the song? That's of course assuming you had originally downloaded it from his site.

[Zarxrax]

i just got it off youtube.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Oh, I was hoping for a higher-quality source. >_> I guess I'll see if the video uploader has the original song file...

BTW, are you aware that the audio quality in YouTube's WebM encodes is of better quality than their FLV and MP4 formats?

[Guthix]

Oh, I was hoping for a higher-quality source. >_> I guess I'll see if the video uploader has the original song file...

BTW, are you aware that the audio quality in YouTube's WebM encodes is of better quality than their FLV and MP4 formats?

why the hell is your sig and avatar are advertizement?

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

why the hell is your sig and avatar are advertizement?

Avatar? Because you are most likely using Chrome and not Firefox or Opera. :p In reality it's because I think it's absolutely silly that we're still using 256-color GIFs for animated images and not APNG, and so I like to think I'm spreading awareness about the format. My avatar shows its actual image in APNG-compatible browsers.

FYI, there is an APNG plugin for Chrome, but hardly anybody knows about it.


Signature? Because those two browsers support APNG, and ReactOS is just awesome.

[Haar]

What a shame that only us tech guys are going to care about all of that. Guthix is using Internet Explorer.

Also, your avatar reminds me that I really have to finish playing Super Robot Wars OG, one of these days.

[ThatsNotMyName_studio]

ThatsNotMyName_studio uses Firefox with the No-Script add on
See? I'm Hip! (well, accidentally anyway)

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Actually for the last two years or so Chrome has been "hip" while Firefox is THE definitive "open source" browser, AKA vendor neutral and the go-to for power-users.

The funny thing is, Chrome's perception and marketing is straight out of Apple's book, the same company that Google fanboys see as the devil. In terms of perception and functionality, it would not be inaccurate to make the folowing analogy:

Firefox = Android
Chrome = iOS

Fanboys. How do they work?

[ThatsNotMyName_studio]

I wouldn't be able to consider myself a power user by any stretch. I started using FF because the pages In Kings of Chaos loaded much much much faster than IE,
and It had the Multi-tabs long before IE did. I don't play KoC much anymore, but still use FF

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Using Firefox over IE is the pre-Chrome perception, like 2008 and older. Since around 2010 or so most IE users that do switch browsers actually switch to Chrome.

However, even MORE recently (as in within this year), users are actually defecting from Chrome to Firefox for largely the same reasons an iOS user would switch to Android.