RANT: IF I'm asked to project one more YouTube video...

[mstaylor]

I like the end where the guy opens the big case and it is a phone in the middle. It never ceases to amaze me how people want everything just exactly right then supply you with crap. I used to have that problem with cheerleading groups, dance troups and others when everything was on cassette. They would give a third generation boombox recorded tape and then couldn't understand why it sounded like dog snot. Now with CDs you have the problem with good decks not reading crap recordings.

 

[FACTplayers]

Back in the days days of CDs we had a very expensive CD player. Everyone would get frustrated because when you pushed play it would take a couple seconds to read and buffer the disc. The trick was to hit play and then pause it. I was running "sound" at a cheer competition using this CD player and the coach kept telling me the track skipped. According to the rules I had to re-start it and her squad (?) got to go again. It happened 2 or three times (in different spots). Finally, I told the judges no and that her squad just kept messing up. No one was happy with that call.

 

[mstaylor]

To be honest I would rather stick a knife in my eye than do cheerleading and I do about ten a year. I did the Worlds for Fox Sports once, dear god!

 

[emoreth]

This is the one area where I love our IT department's overzealous filtering. YouTube and most other video playback sites are blocked in our building!

 

[shiben]

I have put youtube videos on 30K HD projectors. I can tell you that if any video engineer ever "refused" to put a youtube video on a projector, or insinuated it couldnt be done to try to hide the fact that they dont want the viewing to ruin their "artistic integrity" I would tell them to go to hell and never hire them again.

Depends what the situation is... If you have hired me to create a small quantity of HD content on a high profile gig and then decide that several youtube videos get shown as well in a way that might hide they a youtube video, its going to look like I dropped the ball on the content here. And it has happened to me before, so dont say it wont. Now I look like Im a bad projection designer or just lazy, there might be copyright issues that fall on my head (as Im the one who designed it all, and thus am assumed to have made those choices), and the artistic continuity of the show IS seriously affected. I was working on a dance production that had a mix of HD videos (into to acts) that I didnt make, HD content for backgrounds that I did design, and then 2 acts wanted youtube flicks zoomed and cut so that just the video showed up. Does the act look bad in that situation, or is it the guy who is listed as "Projection Designer"? (also the youtube video looks stupid on wide screen with the edges cut... but thats a design opinion) If I was at a meeting and the bossman wants to show a video that he thought was humorous to make a point, we have a different situation on our hands, dont we? And yeah, if I was designing Hamlet and someone wanted to put an lol cats video at the start, I think there is a bit of an artistic issue there (of course, I probably wouldnt be working with that guy again anyhow...). However, I could also envision a situation where it would be totally appropriate. Its a very situational thing, is it not? And it really isnt the video engineer's job to make that call, the Projection Designer ought make that call. The Engineer shouldnt really have much opinion on the issue in the first place.