July 30 - August 1, 2010
Baltimore Convention Center
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Baltimore Convention Center
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Home // Activities // Events: Anime Music Videos - Submit by CD/DVD
Events: Anime Music Videos - Submit by CD/DVD
Submit on VHS Submit on CD/DVD Submit through FTP
- Each entrant is allowed only one (1) submission. Users found creating multiple studios with the intent to circumvent the submission limit will have all of their entries disqualified.
- If you are submitting a solo project, and also want collaboration credit on someone else's video, please contact the contest coordinator for instructions on how to handle this special case.
- Entries will be accepted only through FTP or the mail. We will not download your entry for you. We will not accept entries through e-mail, or those sent through AIM/MSN/etc.
- Do not include studio bumpers or video credits. Any lead-in/lead-out that we can not remove may be grounds for disqualification. Otakon will create a custom, uniform title card based on the information that your provide.
- Your entry must be primarily anime and/or video game footage. The exception to this rule is a live-action adaptation of an anime, intended for television broadcast or release to movie theaters. Such live-action adaptations will be accepted without penalty.
- Your entry's audio must be primarily music. Excessive narration/dialog may be grounds for disqualification, as your submission may be better suited for Otakon's Fan-Parody department instead (No we will not automatically forward your submission to the Fan-Parody department). The exception to this rule is an entry with audio taken from a theatrical movie trailer or tv commercial, that has been submitted to the "Trailer" category. "Custom-made" trailer audio using various elements of dialog is also acceptable in the "Trailer" category and said entries will be accepted without penalty.
- Your entry may not contain audio taken from an English or other language dub. The original Japanese audio may be used. Any dubbing work done by the entrant is also acceptable.
- No commercial studio logos, especially in the trailer category! Any logo that you draw yourself, including parodies of the original logo may be used, but no original or "doctored" studio logos will be accepted.
- Submissions to the "Trailer" category which contains a preview or green approval screen beforehand may NOT contain any mention of the MPAA on it unless they actually DID approve your video for public screening (though we doubt it ^.~).
- Your entry may not contain subtitles, whether they be from a fansub or from a commercial release. Subtitles that you have added on your own are acceptable.
- You submission must be at least 30 seconds in length, but no longer than 6 minutes.
- The Otakon 2009 AMV Contest is open to the general public. Thus, submissions with nudity, offensive language, and/or excessive violence may be grounds for disqualification from the contest.
- Convention attendance is not required to enter. Attending the convention will not increase your chances of being selected for the contest and/or winning.
- Anti-Trolling Policy: Regardless of the date that we receive your entry, should your entry receive a major award at another anime convention prior to June 7th, your entry will be disqualified from the final competition. Any award that your entry wins AFTER June 7th will not be held against you.
- The better quality video that you send us, the better it will look. Remember, the contest is shown on large projection screens, not a small TV. Visual anomalies from poor compression will be enlarged.
- The Otakon 2009 AMV contest will accept submissions from anyone with the exceptions of AMV contest voting staff and AMV contest ballot counters. Put simply: If you are not helping us count ballots at the convention, nor are you contributing towards a "staff pick" vote, then you may enter the contest.
- Otakon reserves the right to reject any video that does not adhere to the rules.
- Deadline: Your submission must be received (not postmarked) by Sunday June 7th, 2009. Entries received late will not be accepted into the Otakon 2009 AMV contest, nor will they be considered candidates for the AMV overflow screenings. In America, we do not get mail on Sundays. The Sunday deadline is only to give last-minute submitters the benefit of the doubt by making sure that mailed entries received by the post office on Saturday make their way from the back of the post office to the PO box.
- Otakon accepts entries recorded on CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-DL and DVD+DL.
- Otakon will accept entries in virtually any file format using almost any form of compression. The more "popular" the codec, the better the chances are of us handling your video properly. If we can't convert your video, we will let you know.
- Entrants are STRONGLY encouraged to submit in MPEG1 or MPEG2 format. All submissions not received in either of these formats will be converted to MPEG2.
- NTSC interlaced video is perfectly acceptable. PAL interlaced is OK, but we'll have to do some tricks to make it play back on our NTSC system, so it's not recommended. Otakon does not guarantee the quality of the playback of a video if we have to do such tricks. If your submission is interlaced, please test it on a broadcast-quality decoder card such as a Hollywood+ or a Netstream2000 to ensure proper field order throughout your video. Your VGA card's tv-out function is not a suitable means of testing your submission.
- If your video is 23.976 or 24 frames per second, when encoding your mpeg2, please flag it for "3:2 pulldown on playback". Otherwise your video will appear "jumpy" when we play it back.
- When encoding an MPEG2, please use either MPEG1 Layer 2 audio, or AC3. WAV, AIFF, MP3, etc. are not acceptable when submitting in MPEG1 or MPEG2 format, as our screening computer does not natively handle these formats.
- Acceptable framerates are 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, and 30. Any other framerate will be converted to the nearest valid framerate.
- The contest is screened at 720x480. All entries that we receive will be scaled to this size.
- Please encode your video for 4:3 playback. This includes letterboxing widescreen footage ahead of time. Videos flagged as 16:9 will be screened improperly. We will letterbox what we can, but Otakon makes no guarantees that we will catch everything.
- If submitting on DVD, refrain from authoring your disc if at all possible. Simply burn your video to the disc as a data file.
- If a video is too large to fit on one disc, we recommend splitting the file using WinRAR or 7-zip.
- You must fill out a submission form. Access the submission form here. You may include a printed copy of the form or the confirmation email that you received after filling it out, but it is not necessary.
- Name your file in the format "Studio Name - Video Title.ext". Example: "VicBond007 Productions - Accidentally in Love.mpg". Use the same studio name and video title that you provided on your submission form.
- Please use a marker to label the surface of your disc with the following information:
- Your video title.
- Your studio title. This must match the studio name that you provided on your submission form.
- If your video spans more than one disc, label the disc in the format of "Disc X of Y". (Example: Disc 1 of 3).
- Do not affix an adhesive label to the disc, and do not simply label the disc case.
- Please ensure that the only content on your disc is the video that you intend to submit to the contest.
- After you have filled out the submission form, please mail your disc to the following address:
Otakon AMV Contest
PO Box 336
Edison, NJ 08818-0636
USA - Submitted discs can not be returned.
- Otakon is not responsible for lost or damaged media. We will do our best to notify you when your entry is received. However, we cannot guarantee confirmation before the submission deadline. If you wish to ensure confirmation, ship your tape with delivery confirmation.
