For voting, how about everyone who enters gets a vote, and it can't be for themselves. That would make things fair, and you would be guarenteed the best judges, the filmakers !

A few contacts but not much. However, to the best of my knowledge this is the first I have heard of such a contest (involving their product). And since HDV is a new format, and they are currently the front runner, I would think that sponsoring this type of event is a plus for them.

Dwight,

I'll approach them after I work out some ideas.

heath

Good idea! I would also suggest that we add a few of the regular forum participants who do not join the contest and some non-participating industry folks if we can find them. We can simply have a best overall film category or several categories (including best film).

One thought for keeping it a shorts film contest and not a contest for broadband shipping containers, would be to have someone act as a postal service clearing house. It costs $0.37 to ship a DVD disk in a paper sleeve, and the delivery is fast and reliable. You could put the film short onto the DVD disk in many forms, Windows WMV9-HD, Quicktime, NTSC DVD video etc, or even more than one format on each disk, or even the miniDV tape itself.

Doing so, you're not arbitrarily limiting the format to a contest of broadband distribution, size versus quality. Instead, you could have quality and size. You could have the true HDTV quality of a film short in a meaningful size.

And you could cover the postage costs by having a small entry fee for the contest. It's likely to be cheaper anyway because you shouldn't ignore the cost of otherwise paying for a broadband host, which could be $0.10 mb download.

With broadband, we've come to treat the U.S. (Canadian) postal service as an anathema, when instead it could make possible a more appropriate delivery of high quality media at a lower price.

Just my $0.02

Good idea, but that could keep others from watching the footage.

Down converting it to DV would save a lot of money and if we can get a sponsor site, it won't cost us anything. The final three films can be in HD, or maybe just the final one or two.

hwm

It's beating a dead horse, but it would be best to get JVC to sponsor this potential event. I am trying to do just that.



Thanks

I want to get a plan together before I approach my contacts within JVC. I'll work on it tonight.

heath

Re the postal of CDs idea....not too bad for those in Nth America....bummer for those of us elsewhere on the planet!!

I guess if downconverting is the only real recourse to get something like this off the ground, then that's what we'd have to accept. The downside will be of course, people with poor understanding viewing the clips and condemning the HD10 on the strength of downconverted footage.

Perhaps the length of the clips should be more like 2.5min rather than 5min. to preserve HD rez. At least the intent of a longer clip version would be implied (if not manifest), while the advantages of HD would be maintained. A base/max. bitrate setting would ensure viability of downloads/uploads.

BTW, what about those using the PAL PD1 version of the cam?

I am not certain that if we included the PAL PD1 in the contest with the HD10U we would be comparing apples and apples. The idea is to see how creative a group of indie film makers can be with the same camera.

I agree with Dwight and Steve. Shorter clips to preserve HD res. And no PD1 because it doesn't do HD res.

Then no one will see the footage.

My idea is simple, downconvert the HDV footage to DV, either mail or FTP to a specific site, films get put up after an initial judging to make sure it's eligible, then EVERYONE can vote. Films will probably have to be less than 5 minutes.

Final three films can be in HDV and the winner wins whatever (sponsors would be key to that). I'm working on this contest, but it's gonna take a lot more than what we want. Esp. if we want JVC and other big name sponsors on board.

heath

I agree on the effort this will take. As a clarification, voting should be limited to registered forum voters and agreed upon invited guests, so we can control the integrity of the process.

Yeah, my plan would involve going with a seperate web site and people have to sign up to do so (like an email newsletter or something).

hwm

Heath, great idea! My guess would be that the members of this forum would like to be involved even if it is at a different site.

Dwight