Villain Fest - Viewing / Rating - Technical Issues Thread

Who's idea was it to allow these things to be sooo huge? I haven't been able to successfully download anything yet. I guess I'll try streaming now.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Same here. And I grabbed it individually. Any word on this??
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I am unable to recreate the issue. I have downloaded it several times to try to get it to play without sound, and it has worked fine for me every time .. including the file in the zip.

The only other thing I can do is manually download each zip from each mirror and see if one of them is corrupt ... that will take me some time to complete.
 
I'm screwed too. Streaming is a no-go. Yet I can stream from every other website known to man.
The individual downloads start and then crap out most of the time. I have to attempt them numerous times in order to get one to stick.
I'm sure most people who are not members won't take the time to bother.

I know the Mods work hard behind the scenes but back when there were >60 entries things went much smoother.
Now we have a fraction of that and it's probably the worst experience I've had yet.

I beg you guys, let people use Vimeo or another streaming website of your choice. Might open the fest up a bit too.
I've been trying to download the last few for a while now. Wish me luck.

PS - Not bashing all the hard work you guys do, but it seems like this fest is broken unless you download the zips.
I know you all work damn hard for these festivals.
 
Chris_Keaton said:
I'm finally getting them to download completely now. Well I got the first few down successfully.
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I only have a few to go but it has been a chore.

I'm just concerned that anyone new to the forum will try the streaming, move to a download that craps out the first time, and then leave.
It is definitely not user friendly this fest.
 
I understand the frustrations, I really do. But understand that this is a growing and evolving system. The downloads have become more difficult because we are allowing much larger file sizes now and I did not appropriately allow enough mirrors to handle the extra bandwidth load. Yes, there are fewer entries, but they are considerably larger, especially the ZIPs, so it increases the load on the servers. I need to spread that around better.

The streaming is still very much in beta. For one thing we are not re-encoding your entries yet. This is something that sites such as Vimeo and Youtube do in order to give a smooth playback experience. We are working on incorporating a re-encoding process, but this requires buying and configuring server space that is appropriate to such a processor intensive activity, dealing with converting to all the many formats necessary for streaming (there are a minimum of 4, and up to 10, formats necessary to stream properly to all platforms/OSs/browsers/etc), ensuring that the conversion process preserves the original author's entry while still allowing for proper streaming, configuring streaming playback (which again required handling varying platforms, OSs and browsers .. most of which require a different combination). And that is just for converting and playing back the video. That doesn't include all the rest of the stuff that goes into the fest site .. all of which is built by volunteer time and effort from people who have jobs outside of this site and families and activities that eat into their available time.

None of that to complain in any way, just to say, we understand the frustration, we appreciate your patience and we are working hard to make the best experience possible.
 
Larry, don't know if you saw it in the other thread...but this was my thinking on a possible win/win (going off what Horrigan said) :
CallaghanFilms said:
I agree. Downloading/Streaming was a big to do this time around (took me damn near 3 full days to get all of 'em).

I don't think it even has to be one of the "big boys" like youtube or vimeo...there are hundreds of streaming sites out there; & I've said before that we should partner with one of them.
Hell, they'd plotz over the exposure of a film fest exclusive.
I say stream, stream, stream - and lose the downloads outright.
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Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
If the streaming worked, nobody would be bitching. Just sayin' :)
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CallaghanFilms said:
Plus, I would think that most would want their short to have a life beyond dvxuser.
&
Assuming something good does happen for it down the road...it would suck to have downloaded copies floating around.
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I hear you Larry but is there a reason you are not going the Vimeo route? It's bug free, the exposure could be huge and people can still download the film if that option is checked off.

Hell, you could embed the video right into our film thread when you are ready for launch.

We could send you the videos as per usual, you upload them to a DVXuser Vimeo group and launch it when you're ready. Could even put direct links in the rating thread.

Just curious why you are trying beta streaming the last few festivals when there are many others out there that work?
 
I believe it is because they want copies of the films for a potential compilation DVD or something. Embedded Vimeo links would work seamlessly.
 
Initially I received errors on downloading the films when they first went up, but now they are working fine. Thanks for providing the options to download the films. I prefer downloading them instead of streaming them.
 
For two days not I've tried to load

"Once upon a time in 1973"
"Villian of the Month"

and both will not load at all. I've commented on the ones that I have been able to load and so good, so far. I'm working my way from the bottom of the list up. Any suggestions or mirror sites on these? The flowplayer won't move on these two no matter what I do. But the others start up very quickly.
 
I can't seem to record a rating for the finalists. The stars appear to be read-only for me.

Anyone else get this?
 
Hawk Teflon said:
That's my take on it, too. But if that's the case, why is the second round so long?
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I think it's because back in the day there used to be 50+ films. Lots of people couldn't watch all of them. Then ten films (or so) would make the finals and this additional week would give people a chance to at least watch (and vote on) the top films in the fest.
 
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