Downloadable at Archive.org

Thanks to Ian Albinson of Art of the Title, there’s now a high quality (albeit smaller than HD) downloadable 480p QuickTime H.264 at archive.org. More formats and sizes on the way! If you manage to download this, please consider offering it on your own host and leaving a link in the comments posting a link on the Sita Wiki.

Also, we’re revamping sitasingstheblues.com. It’s still a work in progress, but notice the new text on the home page and this hard-to-find essay.

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30 thoughts on “Downloadable at Archive.org”

  1. Anonymous sources say that it will be available as a BitTorrent by later tonight O:-)
    Ironically, something told me to go check archive.org for it, before even checking here for a new blog post.
    Thanks Ian!

  3. I tried to watch the streaming version but it kept stopping and saying “item not available.” I tried some reloads to get it to work and would see a little of it before it stopped; then gave up. The friend I was showing it to was really excited about it, though, she especially liked the music choices.

    I am so glad I let you know about archive.org and creative commons those few years ago.

    You’re not only an animator, you’re a movement!

    Good luck, because you’ve had enough of the bad kind to last several lifetimes.

  6. Wow, great news!!!

    I know a lot of people have been itching to see it 🙂

    It’s amazing you’re using Creative Commons too- I think “Sita” is a huge inspiration, since it shows what a determined artist can accomplish!

  7. I had downloaded the 480p version from archive.org yesterday.
    Don’t have a website to link it to, but I hooked it up to the mininova torrent above and now I’m one of the seeders.

  8. A little e-mail I sent to Adobe’s PR department tonight, just for the hell of it:

    “Auteur Nina Paley is looking for relatively modest financial support to distribute her spectacular animated feature created entirely in Flash, “Sita Sings the Blues.” It can be viewed at

    http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/blog/watch-sita-sings-the-blues-online/347/

    I don’t know Ms Paley, but I am thrilled by her accomplishment. Can’t Adobe recognize in it a major milestone in Flash development and assist her in getting the work out there?”

  9. Thanks for helping seed, rax! If you felt like doing the same for the 1080p version right about now i wouldn’t mind O:-)
    no biggie though 😉

  12. Yup, np. just saw the 1080p version. downloading it now and will be seeding that too. My PC is on all day, every day, so seeding is no biggie.
    Seeding this movie is a pleasure.

  13. I’m not sure who or where to ask, but if Ian sees this (and if you have the movie uncompressed), could you / someone post an uncompressed (like WAV or maybe FLAC) version of the audio track? I’d like to be able to make it in other audio formats without having to transcode from the current AAC…

  16. Thanks, Ian! Now maybe I can remux myself a truly l33t mkv file containing the “perfect” 1080p video and lossless audio!

    Another project I’m working on is a burnable AVCHD version – small enough to be burned to a dvd blank, but playable on many (or just several?) blu-ray players in full HD quality. I made a 1080p version that plays on my panasonic bd35 (and looks BEAUTIFUL) but i had to transcode the audio to ac3, and there are a couple of intermittent audio blips. I’m thinking of doing it instead using the 720p video and uncompressed WAV, then it may not have to be such a squeeze to fit onto a DVD.

    BTW: would it be appropriate (or possible?) to put the actual .torrent files on the archive.org page next to their respective download choices? The three torrents are all linked back to the archive.org files (as webseeds – meaning there should always be at least one seed while the files are there), and it might help take some of the bandwidth stress off their servers.

    for instance:

    1080p HD | 4 GB (Torrent)

  17. Hi Nina,

    My name is Tanu and I work for a South Asian magazine in Melbourne, Australia. Any chance I can organise an interview with your via chat/email/phone.

    You have my email id. It would be a fantastic opportunity for our readers to see this kind of work especially with regards to your decision to distribute this free.

    Looking forward to hearing from you.

    warm regards,
    Tanu

  19. Finally, I’ve got Sita Sings the Blues in lovely 1080p. Next up, converting it into a format that I can leave on my hard drive and stream through my PS3. Anyone clever with the codec conversion feel like pointing me in the right direction of a handy program to do this with?

  20. James:
    You might not need to convert it, or at least not very much. The playstation 3 apparently plays .mp4, so try the original file first – i’m not completely sure whether it supports .mp4 with AVC video as in this case, but it’s worth a try.

    If not, there is a way to convert the movie to AVCHD, but since the .mp4 format is a little clunky, it requires an extra step or two. I’ve made it happen, and the whole movie in 1080p can be made to fit on one single-layer DVD blank, playable in my blu-ray player. I can explain how but it gets lengthy.

  21. Hi Nina,

    Just halfway through the film. I don’t know how to put my feelings into words. It’s one of the most brilliant works of art I’ve ever seen. I know this is not a space to say this. But i just wanted to express myself somewhere. Would like to write in detail and post it after watching the whole movie.

    Thanks a lot for kick starting this amazing movement, which I wish and hope will be the way films are made and distributed in the days to come.

  22. I tried playing Sita streamed straight from the hard drive last night, but while the PS3 recognized everything else in the folder it gave no indication that Sita was there. It was a bit disappointing seeing as the NobiNobi Boy video I’d downloaded was in .mp4 format. If you’ve got a pointer to a guide that would be good enough. Unless you feel like torrenting the converted file, of course. 🙂

  24. As a postproduction newbie, it’s not obvious to me how to burn a DVD. Here’s how I did it on Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy).

    1. I found a torrent at http://www.LegalTorrents.com
    2. I downloaded it (took about 8 hours) using Azureus
    3. I scratched my head and consulted Google
    4. I used Synaptic Package Manger to download and install DeVeDe
    5. I ran DeVeDe and selected Video DVD (the first and simplest option)
    6. Ignored the Titles dialog, and unchecked the Menu option at the bottom of the screen (the movie starts automatically, in other words, and fades to black at the end — it has no Menu)
    7. Pointed the File to my downloaded copy of
    Sita_Sings_the_Blues_480p_2150kbps.mp4, named the “folder” (uh..what folder?) SitaSingsTheBlues.
    8. Clicked Forward (accepting all other defaults)
    9. Two hours later, burned the brand new SitaSingsTheBlues.iso file on my desktop
    10. Played it on the family DVD player (got a kick out of the flushing noises with 5 seconds of Intermission remaining).

    Pretty simple. Hacker’s Rule #1, accept all the defaults first. (Experiment later, if there’s time.)

  25. Dave –
    impressive job of getting through all that. Ian Albison and I are working on pre-fabricated DVD versions right now; he already has a menu-less .iso DVD encoding up on the main archive.org page – you just have to “view all files”; it’s pretty high quality and just fits onto a single-layer DVD blank. I’m working off the same script, but making a version with chapters and menus… I’m hoping it may be “professional” enough for wider distribution, though I’m fairly sure it will still pale in comparison to “commercial” DVD authorings…

  26. One thing I’m hoping will happen with the Creative comns license is that multilingual people will create subtitles that can be added and played on any computer.

    I’m not fluent enough in any other language to do it, or even know how to create subtitle files for dvds, but I’m sure there are people who would be willing to help with subtitling options besides the usual obvious languages of English, French, and Spanish. Personally, I;m lookign forward to an Esperanto version.

  27. cainmark, there’s now a section on the Sita Wiki dedicated to subtitles. So far I’ve only found a Russian translation, but I’m sure that translations to other languages will pop up eventually. If the movie’s good, they always do, even when they’re technically illegal. :\

    For creating or editing subtitles, I highly recommend the program “Subtitle Workshop”. It makes everything very comfortable and easy.

  29. We downloaded and watched the 1080i version. You first captured m attention with you amazing stork video. Sita is brilliant, clever, and riveting. Thanks so much for this animated gem!

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