IMDB/Withoutabox Secure Screener – Render settings

[Jan Weber]

Hello Fred!

Thank you for sharing your experiences with the secure online screener! It helped a lot!

But I still don’t understand where exactly I can find the upload. How does it work?
– will there be an upload button during the submission process on withoutabox? I testet a submission up to the point where I would have to pay the fee.
– or do I have to use an Imdb-account? And if yes, how do I connect the two?

I already tried the withoutabox help center but the reply was not too helpful… :o) Maybe they thought the question would be too basic ;o))

Anyway! It would be a great help if you (or somebody else) could share the process of using the secure screener for festival submissions!
It’ much appreciated!

All the best!
Jan

[Vincent Tay]

Hi Jan,

Just submitted my film as a Secure Online Screener on WAB and thought I’d share the experience.

You need to go through the entire process of filling in all the details of your film and actually submitting it to a festival that accepts Online Screener before you get the option to upload your film. You will be redirected to a horribly antiquated IMDB page where, after you choose the file to upload and hit the submit button, all the screen does is to warn you not to close the page. There is no progress bar or anything that sophisticated – just a page with the warning. I had to look at my network activity via iStat Menus (on a Mac) to make sure there was activity with the IMDB site. The upload averaged 50 kbps, so my 500 Mb film took close to 4 hrs to upload.

Eventually the screen refreshed with the message that the film has uploaded successfully, but a small box to the left had a message stating ‘Video Status: PROCESSING – 1% complete’. I waited 2 hrs and this did not change. Eventually I ended up refreshing the page and descovered that the video was ready. I have no idea how long the processing took.

The quality is passable. If your film has a 16×9 aspect ratio, it will be letter boxed in a 640×460 frame.

I’ve uploaded a frame exported from the compressed 1280×720 video I uploaded to IMDB, and also a screen grab of the same frame off the Secure Online Screener so you can compare the loss of quality.

BTW, the codec of my film is Pro Res 422 HQ, which I compressed to H.264 for Broadband at 5 Mbps for the upload.

Exported Frame
https://i.imgur.com/RlMdT.jpg

Secure Online Screener Screen Grab
https://i.imgur.com/a1kNU.png

The Secure Online Screener is free for your 1st submission but all subsequent ones incur a $3 fee. I think I’ll be mailing out DVDs if I have the time.

Hope this helps.

View post on imgur.com

[Noam Osband]

So, I had a film that was 1920×1080 and I uploaded it to Withoutabox and it looks ok. Should I still follow their directions and letterbox it at 480 px by 360?

Also, my film is 24fps. My question: will it get messed up if I compress it to 30fps, something else recommended in the Withoutabox specs?

[Gwen Barriac]

Hello,
I am having a similar issue with my upload to without a box and thought you might be able to help me.
I only have a .mov file (sent to me from the animator I hired), and when I upload it, everything looks/ sounds find except for a portion of the audio where the music is louder than the rest. There are strange audio artifacts which should like hissing.

The file is less that 1 GB as requested, and is a .mov file.
Should I convert it to another kind of file before uploading it?
What kind of file would be best?
Do you think the problem with the sound is due to the conversion which without a box does to a flash file?
I would be most grateful for any advice.
Thanks,
Gwen

[John Rofrano]

[gwen barriac] “Should I convert it to another kind of file before uploading it? “

What formats do they support? I can’t see anything about this on their web site without signing up. This thread is 4 years old now. Do they still require the tiny “480 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall at 30 frames per second.“? It’s hard for us to say without know more about the formats that they require and what format your video is (which you haven’t told us).

[gwen barriac] “Do you think the problem with the sound is due to the conversion which without a box does to a flash file? “

Do you have the problem in your source video? If not, it’s something they have introduced.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com