Wednesday 3 August 2011

Bill Gates vs. C'Thulu

The fury that boils within me in the face of WMM's constant failure at publishing my movie is beyond any speakable form B|

My self-restaint as it crashes for a fifth time is truly admirable. My speaking tone is monotonic, my movements slow and careful. If I attempt it once more and it fails on me again, there is a very good chance this restraint will disappear and you'll find me back in the nearest computer store in search of equipment that actually works. [calmface]

Murder might just be the only solution: an unwilling sacrifice at the altar of Microsoft might just be the key to unlocking the torment hidden behind this unbreakable, eternal barrier of so-called technological advancement. Touche, Mr Gates..., I believe you are the spawn of the Dark Lord C'Thulu, or perhaps some other, similar pagan embodiment of madness and despair. Be sure that, should we ever meet in public, I will do all in my power to banish you back to the dark realm from whence you were spawned under the morbid clouds of death and agonised wailing. I hope those who were sacrificed in your honour knew what they were getting the rest of us into, because I'd be happier knowing they are laughing at us in the world beyond and rubbing their hands together with glee at the success of their frustratingly evil plan.
 
These are three posts I put up on my Facebook last night in the face of my attempts to finishing editing a video I had filmed back in May.
 
You see, I had filmed a pretty amusing video to be the third in my series that I have been putting up, but due to technological restraints I was unable to edit it at the time. The video required a moment of interlocking sound that Windows Movie Maker (my software of neccessity, NOT choice... Premiere doesn't work on any of my two laptops and one desktop computer and all the other software I have tried outside of the Adobe range has been even worse) was not capable of, so the video files sat mouldering in my hard drive until I could access better software capable of perfoming the task.
 
Fast forward a few months and suddenly a brainwave hits me (that was pretty obvious, when it came to me) and I discover I CAN perform the neccessary task on WMM and complete the video. An hour of editing later and I play it through and find it every bit as cool as I had hoped it would be (I know, if/when you see it you won't think it so good, but I'm working from a low-standards point of view. Anything slightly technological, like layered sound, is a step in a good direction for the work I have done so far) so I excitedly hit the publish button, choose the file destination and let it go.
 
4% of the way in the whole system crashes.
 
I recover the safely pre-saved file and try again.
 
5% in the system crashes.
 
I recover once more, set it to go.
 
4% and crash.
 
By this point the first two of the three comments have been posted. I have done all I can think of to sort it out, restart, re-edit, copy paste etc... and nothing. The dialogue box says that an update is required. I update. Same thing. So I head online and the service there says to download the latest version, 2011, so I can do it from there. So I do.
 
3 and a half hours of downloading later, the whole thing crashes. No updates are made and it tells me my version of Windows will not allow for the upgrade in software. It suggests I update the software. I try to. It fails. I head onto my other laptop, which does not currently have WMM at all, and attempt to download it there. It is of a new enough version so all should be fine. FOUR hours pass this time and the update completes. Dialogue box appers: an error occurred and not all the programs were installed in the operation.
 
So I restart and take a look. It has updated my system half-heartedly. I now have a program called Live Writer on there that I have no need for and, to further piss into my eyesocket, it has installed the new, terrible version of MSN, thereby ruining my ability to use that software too.
 
The third of  the messages go up now and I give up entirely. I download another, different, un-Windows program to attempt it and discover it is worse the WMM again, so I sit and I ponder. I think, perhaps I can publish the video without the overlapped sound and add it later. I publish the video, sans extra sound, and find it worked. So I draw all the files back and in can no longer match the sound as I need it. I extract sound files, MP3s, video, AVI
 
Wait... No layered sound, no on-clip sound, and it craps out... But it previously published the whole video with sound. I quickly make another video, edit it, and publish it. It comes out perfectly. I look at the published video that has the normal sound but not overlaid sound, then look at the one that won't publish at all.
 
Can the answer really be that simple? Can the software really be so mind-bogglingly idiotic that such a thing could cause it to crash and endure the last few paragraphs of hell? I seriously hope not, but I give it a try, final attempt and all.
 
I replace the audio that I had removed. I unmute all the muted tracks, then lower their volume so they are not audible but still count as unmuted. The I publish.
 
1%. 5%. 10%. 25%. 50%. 100%.
 
I hate you so much Bill Gates...
 
Here is a link to my playlist of the videos so far. They are in the order in which they are meant to be watched (the upload order is different, due to events like what has been described here) so please, check them out if you have 10 minutes spare. They aren't long, nor very good, but when trying to get into the industry one tries to get ones work viewed, and they will get better in time.
 
When I find and murder Bill Gates....
 
(Sorry, another ranting blog, but I have nothing else interesting to say right now. It's all in my videos.)

1 comment:

  1. Quality Screed Bro, quality screed.

    haha, jokes.

    Stay positive. It is the only solution, do the math if you don't believe me.

    ReplyDelete