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So I was pretty frustrated last night, in case you didn't notice. I also rather unfairly made almost everyone who has recently submitted a video to vividcon feel bad. I can see how that can happen. Sorry about that.
I never, ever, presume that everyone can submit videos in the perfect form I'd like, that works straight away. I know that everyone would love to be able to do that, so they would if they could. Tech problems and complications can arise from all sorts of places and certainly not always through direct user error. This year is no different from any other in terms of what percentage of videos have complex problems and I certainly hold no ill will to any individual that has suffered from this. With some, the problems were found early and able to be corrected. With others, the problem was more obscure and appeared suddenly just at the point when everything seemed to be going well.
The main difference this year is that there were so many more videos and with the percentages being the same that makes a lot more work. I'd estimate that a video with a technical problem takes at least 10 times more time to deal with than a one without. Ones without are basically no work at all. So it wasnt that these problems were there at all, they always are, but that there were so *many* of them.
The main source of my frustration and the actual cause of the anger last night, was how the rules of the game are still very much analogue when we're quite happily enjoying our so-called digital revolution. When you test and make things on a computer you get very different result than how things are on a tv. Weird shit happens that you just weren't expecting. Nowadays, so much of our content is entirely digitally focussed (from obtaining source to encoding for online distribution) that we forget these other issues that come up. For some people, sending something into a convention like this will be the first time they ever really need to deal with analogue standards at all. Heck, I wish I didn't have to deal with them either. But these are the terms of engagement.
From my point of view, interlacing and frame rates are so intensely antiquated that it's honestly insulting that we still have to deal with these issues in modern video production. The legacy of old television has lasted for longer than I've been alive and unfortunately looks to continue long into the future. If they wanted to, they could have removed interlaced profiles from HDTV altogether... but they didn't. We are stuck with this shit for at least another decade.
That is what really annoys me. The fact that we have to check ourselves against these antiquated systems, the fact that every new era of technology has to carry across some awful legacy support for this outdated methods. Sure, if more people were as conscious of our reliance on the analogue then I'm sure a lot of these problems would have been found before they were sent to me, but the digital age has given us all a false sense of technical security. With everything else being so much easier, why shouldn't that stuff be easy too?
Then, inevitably, when a load of videos are submitted to me with these antiquated problems then I have to do some crazy houdini trick to untie the video from these antique chains. Doing that trick can be fun for a time but when you're dunked under water, short for time and every unlocked chaing presents a new one to deal with, it can get pretty stressful. That's what has happened this week and last night it was near drowning levels. Lots of silly antique chains, limited time.
Of course, I'd love for people to be more aware of the issues because inevitably it's a lot easier to fix these things earlier than it is later and I'm sure it would have helped considerably for people to do checking on a tv. If anything, it can offer them some peace of mind because if it doesnt look like that later on then you know who to blame :) But really it's nobodies fault but these stupid horrible video standards that we have to deal with in order to present what we do. Frankly it's hardly surprising - this stuff is as intensely confusing as it is intensely irritating.
I never, ever, presume that everyone can submit videos in the perfect form I'd like, that works straight away. I know that everyone would love to be able to do that, so they would if they could. Tech problems and complications can arise from all sorts of places and certainly not always through direct user error. This year is no different from any other in terms of what percentage of videos have complex problems and I certainly hold no ill will to any individual that has suffered from this. With some, the problems were found early and able to be corrected. With others, the problem was more obscure and appeared suddenly just at the point when everything seemed to be going well.
The main difference this year is that there were so many more videos and with the percentages being the same that makes a lot more work. I'd estimate that a video with a technical problem takes at least 10 times more time to deal with than a one without. Ones without are basically no work at all. So it wasnt that these problems were there at all, they always are, but that there were so *many* of them.
The main source of my frustration and the actual cause of the anger last night, was how the rules of the game are still very much analogue when we're quite happily enjoying our so-called digital revolution. When you test and make things on a computer you get very different result than how things are on a tv. Weird shit happens that you just weren't expecting. Nowadays, so much of our content is entirely digitally focussed (from obtaining source to encoding for online distribution) that we forget these other issues that come up. For some people, sending something into a convention like this will be the first time they ever really need to deal with analogue standards at all. Heck, I wish I didn't have to deal with them either. But these are the terms of engagement.
From my point of view, interlacing and frame rates are so intensely antiquated that it's honestly insulting that we still have to deal with these issues in modern video production. The legacy of old television has lasted for longer than I've been alive and unfortunately looks to continue long into the future. If they wanted to, they could have removed interlaced profiles from HDTV altogether... but they didn't. We are stuck with this shit for at least another decade.
That is what really annoys me. The fact that we have to check ourselves against these antiquated systems, the fact that every new era of technology has to carry across some awful legacy support for this outdated methods. Sure, if more people were as conscious of our reliance on the analogue then I'm sure a lot of these problems would have been found before they were sent to me, but the digital age has given us all a false sense of technical security. With everything else being so much easier, why shouldn't that stuff be easy too?
Then, inevitably, when a load of videos are submitted to me with these antiquated problems then I have to do some crazy houdini trick to untie the video from these antique chains. Doing that trick can be fun for a time but when you're dunked under water, short for time and every unlocked chaing presents a new one to deal with, it can get pretty stressful. That's what has happened this week and last night it was near drowning levels. Lots of silly antique chains, limited time.
Of course, I'd love for people to be more aware of the issues because inevitably it's a lot easier to fix these things earlier than it is later and I'm sure it would have helped considerably for people to do checking on a tv. If anything, it can offer them some peace of mind because if it doesnt look like that later on then you know who to blame :) But really it's nobodies fault but these stupid horrible video standards that we have to deal with in order to present what we do. Frankly it's hardly surprising - this stuff is as intensely confusing as it is intensely irritating.
