Post #1: Fanvids

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Heh, just barely on time. ^^; I have more to post as well, which will be a little bit late...but since Alice posted on my day, I don't think I'll feel too bad if I end up posting on hers. ^_~

Behind the cut you'll find links to download two B5 fanvids. I actually made the first versions of these as part of a set of four back in December over the Christmas break, but nobody ever got to see them but me. (Rightly so...they were complete crap.) Although I call these 'remasters', it's not strictly true---these are remakes, entirely from scratch, and hopefully much better. I hope you enjoy them.

A note on quality: The B5 DVDs are...well, a total pain in the ass. They're noisy (in the sense of film noise and artefacts), the occasional random hybrid encode pops up (damn you, Ceremonies of Light and Dark!), and of course, the poor transfer of the CGI over to the DVDs has been well documented elsewhere. Anyway, I've tried to clean up the footage as best I can, but I'm just a noob, so I'm sure there are still plenty of noticeable issues. My apologies. BTW, if anyone else is into this kind of thing and has a wicked Avisynth script suggestion to better clean up these DVDs or anything like that, please do let me know. Any suggestions are welcome.




Song: Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence (Reinterpreted by Mike Shinoda)
Footage: Shadow Dancing and Z'ha'dum
Size: 46.4MB (HQ XviD-MP3)
YouSendIt Link
MegaUpload Link

Simply put, a video about the consequences of Anna's return and John's sacrifice.


Song: Daniel Bedingfield - If You're Not the One
Footage: Seasons 2, 3, 4
Size: 59.6MB (HQ XviD-MP3)
YouSendIt Link
MegaUpload Link

A sickly sweet, saccharine J&D video. ^_^; Seriously, be prepared to be blown away by the sheer power of the WAFF.

Let me know if you have any problems downloading or playing them. If you have problems because you have a slow connection or anything like that, I can (reluctantly ;P) encode smaller, lower quality versions upon request.

EDIT 2:05 PM: New YSI links. ^_^

Comments

[jazzgoddess.livejournal.com]

Hi there. I don't know if it's something that I'm doing wrong - but I downloaded the Sheridan/Delenn video and for some reason, the video isn't playing. The audio plays - but not the video. I've tried it on both Windows Media Player and Winamp...and nothing. Could you shed any light on this???

[jazzgoddess.livejournal.com]

Scratch that - it was a codec problem. I have a new computer, and didn't realise that I was missing a codec. It's all good. :)

[jazzgoddess.livejournal.com]

5 mins later...and by the way that was COMPLETELY AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[flarn-chef.livejournal.com]

:( What I need to do to see them....? I still can't. *pouts*

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

I've encoded them so they're compatible with any computer that has DivX, which should be most computers. :/

What problem exactly are you having?

BTW, totally wicked icon. I love Young Frankenstein. ^_^

[flarn-chef.livejournal.com]

BTW, totally wicked icon. I love Young Frankenstein.
THX! *dies 2x* over your Minbari sex icon!!!

Downloading DivX as I type. *skips around the room in anticipation*

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Heh, that icon never fails to make you laugh, hence my posting with it. ;P

Downloading DivX as I type. *skips around the room in anticipation*

Let me know if you still have any problems...or rather, if you do still have any problems, then my main suggestion is this:

http://cccp-project.net/

If you install this on your computer, you should never have any problems playing ANY video file of any type again, ever. *LOL* It's just that awesome. ;P If you do install it though, it's best to uninstall any other codecs that you have on your computer first. ^^

Anyway, I hope you manage to play them okay! ^_^ I've also got working download links for the FST up over in the other post now. :)

*fangirls Danielle for a moment before leaving*

[flarn-chef.livejournal.com]

Marvelous!!!

me/happy....B5 vids and computer therapy!

"Enjoy the Silence" is chillingly beautiful.
"If You're Not the One"... Let me just say that you give good soppy, sweet, gooey, mushy B5 love. It makes my original shippy lover heart go BOOM!

THX!!!! Now, more please.

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you...I'm really glad you enjoyed them! ^_^

THX!!!! Now, more please.

Yes ma'am! I'll do my best. ;P

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it worked out. Even though I encoded with XviD, I tweaked the settings so that anyone with a recent update of DivX on their computer should be able to watch the vids, and that's pretty standard on most computers these days, so I'm hoping most people won't have too many problems, but we'll see. ^_^

5 mins later...and by the way that was COMPLETELY AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you! ^_^

[gabolange.livejournal.com]

These are both lovely videos. And I adore the sweet, saccharine J&D! ;-) Good work!

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ^_^ I'm glad you liked them.

The YouSendIt links are down...:-(

[rabidemu4623.livejournal.com]

Any chance of getting them back up?

(The person who sent you this file has exceeded their download limit.)

Re: The YouSendIt links are down...:-(

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Done! ^_^

Yay!!

[rabidemu4623.livejournal.com]

Aww "If You're not the One" was so cute. I love the evolution of their romance, it's just so adorable.

And "Enjoy the Silence"..
All I can say is wow. I really like the way you overlayed the clips, showing the shadows (sorry, sorry!) of that live within the people or that lurk behind their actions. Adding the space battle footage also enforced the weight of the consequences; it's about more than the problems between a man, his lover, and his arrived back-from-the-dead ex-wife.

Okay, so "wow" was *not* all I could say; sorry my comment ended up so *long*. :-)

Re: Yay!!

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

I love the evolution of their romance, it's just so adorable.

Isn't it? I was listening to this song one day and it suddenly hit me how perfect it was for precisely that...the evolution of the J&D romance. All the clips slid together in my head practically right then, it just worked so perfectly...I love when a song works so well like that. ^_^ Even if it does make me a hopeless romantic. *LOL*

I really like the way you overlayed the clips, showing the shadows (sorry, sorry!) of that live within the people or that lurk behind their actions.

*LOL* It's kind of hard to avoid the puns when talking about B5, isn't it? ^^;

Adding the space battle footage also enforced the weight of the consequences; it's about more than the problems between a man, his lover, and his arrived back-from-the-dead ex-wife.

That's part of what I appreciate so much about B5...about JMS' incredible storytelling. He manages to tie everything together, to show us that everything balances together so that the littlest things have equal meaning to the biggest.

Anyway, thanks so much...I'm really glad you enjoyed them. :)

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

Love, love them both, but especially the soppy one. I tried the music downloads but am getting the 'exceeded limits' message. Will try again later, after PTA meeting. PTA is starting to seriously interfere with my B5 viewing. Must think about this...

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've exceeded my YSI download limit for the month on that account...the bandwidth limit on YSI is so small that it's hardly surprising. *sigh* I should've just uploaded them somewhere else in the first place. ^^; Anyway, the first parts are on Sendspace now and the rest will be up soon, so hopefully you should be able to get it from there.

Don't you hate when real life interferes with B5!? So annoying...*sigh* I had a couple of other things planned to post for this, but in the end, life got in the way...*frowns* ;P

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

*LOL* Oh, and since I totally forgot to say so...thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed the vids. ^_^

[jenavira.livejournal.com]

Yay, more vidders! There's a serious lack of B5 vids out there. It is kind of a hard show to vid, but people vid House for cryin' out loud...anyway.

Enjoy the Silence -- I wasn't too sure about the song choice when I looked at it, but the remix was great. I liked the long fades and overlays; they lend to the surreal, creepy feeling you get when Sheridan starts doing insane things like shouting at Delenn.

If You're Not The One -- One day those two will kill me with their cute, I swear it. That was adorable.

(Your encodes are perfectly gorgeous, by the way, I'm jealous. Except of course for those scenes where the video quality on the DVD is crap. Is there a way to fix that?)

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Yay, more vidders! There's a serious lack of B5 vids out there. It is kind of a hard show to vid, but people vid House for cryin' out loud...anyway.

I know! I'm totally excited to download yours---I thought Signal to Noise was an awesome choice for a B5 vid, BTW---but since I've been uploading music all day I haven't been able to download it yet. *LOL* I'm looking forward to it, though. ^_^

I was hoping to get the other two vids I mentioned finished for this, but alas, time flies. *le sigh* ;P

I wasn't too sure about the song choice when I looked at it, but the remix was great.

I'm not a huge Depeche Mode fan myself, but I am a bit of a fan of Linkin Park...I like Mike Shinoda's mixes, and it's always fun when he remixes an older song. I was listening to this song a lot back in November and December when I got back into my B5 obsession (it cycles around every year or two for me, going right back into the 90's *LOL*), and this vid started to build itself in my head by itself (they tend to do that, I find). It seemed to work, so I did it. ^_~

I liked the long fades and overlays; they lend to the surreal, creepy feeling you get when Sheridan starts doing insane things like shouting at Delenn.

This is kind of a weakness in my vidding, I must admit---back when I was first learning to vid, the guy whose tutorials I followed was incredibly fond of overlays and cross dissolves, and so that was how I learned. I've since learned that it's good to be a bit more frugal with them and use more straight cuts, but old habits die hard. ^^; Sometimes it really does work best with the emotion of the music though...I'm glad it worked fairly well in this case. ^_^

If You're Not The One -- One day those two will kill me with their cute, I swear it. That was adorable.

Thank you. Their cuteness is indeed irresistible. ^_~

Your encodes are perfectly gorgeous, by the way, I'm jealous. Except of course for those scenes where the video quality on the DVD is crap. Is there a way to fix that?

Thank you...it was cleaning up the footage that took me the longest, but mostly because I'd never tried to do anything this high quality before. I've been making AMVs and VGMVs for a few years now, but at a far more amateur level even than these...I've only just started learning some of the tricks for making really high quality stuff, and it shows. ;P

Because I've only just started, my answer to your question is that I'm not sure. Someone with more experience than me would probably have a far better idea at how to fiddle around with settings in Avisynth to do a better job than I did...although I did play around for hours to get what I did, I'm sure if I'd taken the time to learn more about the process and the scripting language, I could've done more. ^_^ But for the scenes in the DVDs that are just really bad quality to start with...for example, a lot of the scenes in the first season that are really noticeably full of pops and clicks (so annoying -_-'...who transferred these episodes to DVD, anyway!?), even with some heavy denoise or deflicker filtering I can't see that there'd be a whole lot that could be done except for going in frame by frame and removing the artifacts. In other words, very tedious. *weeps*

Anyway, thanks so much for watching the vids...I'm so glad you liked them. I'll be getting back to you when I've watched yours!! ^_^

Question

[gothic-pegusus.livejournal.com]

What about your Maria AMV (Maria Sama Ga Miteru to M by Ayumi Hamaskai), unless I got the wrong user.

Re: Question

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Hi there,

Yup, that's me...what about it? If you're asking where you can see it, somebody was nice enough to upload it to youtube a few years back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YD9QwSuf3M

Or if you're asking for the full-quality version (which is still very poor quality, as it's one of my older vids, but it's better than the youtube one at least), then I could upload that for you if you'd like. Let me know.

Re: Question

[gothic-pegusus.livejournal.com]

Yeah do you have a better quality one? Because the other one's audio was disabled.

Re: Question

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I see that it was. ^^ Too bad.

I'll send that to you ASAP...I have to get it off my other computer, though, and I'm just about to go out of town so it might take me a little bit. I'll get it to you Sunday at the latest, okay? :)

Thanks for your interest in the video, by the way.

Re: Question

[gothic-pegusus.livejournal.com]

No problem. It was my favorite shoujo-ai amv and actually that's what got me into Ayumi Hamasaki's music (then I found out she did some Inuyasha openings/closing songs) and also got me to want to watch the anime. I'm trying to get the last 2-3 seasons now :)

Re: Question

[elsewherecw.livejournal.com]

That's sweet, thank you. :) I'm really glad you enjoyed it. That's cool that it got you into Ayumi's music as well...I, too, got into Ayumi's music originally because of watching somebody else's AMV that used one of her songs ('Evolution'), so that's kind of ironic. ^_^

I hope you manage to get your hands on those last seasons---I assume you're talking about of Marimite? The 4th season was just amazing. ^^

Anyway, here's that link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GFKJ2EUN

I hope you don't have any problems downloading it. :)