My webmistress is preparing to launch the new version of the website, and while I have full confidence in her abilities, I feel it’s necessary to warn you that the potential for disaster is always lurking. Expect the front page to be in a state of dysfunction for a short while, until we can work the kinks out.

The forums will remain relatively untouched, and I don’t think we’re doing anything that should affect the way they operate.

We’ll probably be adding other functionality incrementally. The movie reviews may take a little time to set right because they’re undergoing such a radical series of revisions (I originally organized the file structure like a deranged drug-test monkey), and I’m trying to re-render and upload new copies of all my previous videos that I hope will load better for you guys. It’ll take a while until this battle station is fully-operational.

Lastly, if you’re subscribed to this blog feed, you’d better get ready to dump it. I will discontinue using Blogger with the new site format. All of my updates will go through another feed. Stay tuned for more details. Mainly, expect some outages in the near future, and try not to panic.

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I know that the videos are downloading slowly for some of you. I’m working around the clock to upload new videos that tech support claims will stream without any bandwidth hitches. But I’ve also heard many complaints about stuttering, video sync problems, and failure of the videos to load at all.

At this point in modern computing, I really shouldn’t have to tell you that whenever you’re having problems, one of the first things you should do is ensure you have the latest device drivers for all of your hardware and software. Seriously. Check. Download the latest drivers for Flash and Java if you can, and then make sure you’re using the latest version of Firefox. Make sure Windows is up to date. Odds are, that will solve your problem.

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I got a message from Blip explaining why they think the videos are being so slow to load. I set the video bit rate too high. I set it that way on the advice of a particular clown who shall remain nameless, but it’s made things a huge mess. I’ll have to re-render every video on Blip, and that screws all my previous blog posts up. I’ll also have to go change the embedded players on the other pages…agh, makes me want to pull my hair out just thinking about it.

But since I’m doing it, I thought I might correct a few things. I’ll be resizing the videos to 720×540, which is the original un-stretched format, and a little more manageable for the new site. I’ll also be cleaning up the Phantasmagoria videos so that the picture is uniform, and the breaks between “episodes” is more sensible. I’ve decided to split them up into hour-long segments instead of the confusing 10-minutes-on-YouTube, who-knows-how-long-on-Blip method I’ve been doing.

Now if you’re ready for the really confusing part, I’ll still upload the next Phantasmagoria segments on Blip somewhat piecemeal until the whole thing is finished. When it’s all done with, I’ll convert it all into the nice 1-hour long segments with the others.

It’ll take some time, though. Re-rendering all these files is damn slow work.

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