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Thank you for joining us for the Haydenfilms Online Film Festival! Below are the basic requirements and instructions on how to operate the elements of our film player.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Internet Connection: To effectively view the films in the Haydenfilms Online Film Festival you must have a broadband (high speed) internet connection with a download speed of at least 500 Kb/second or faster. If your internet connection does not consistently provide this rate of transfer speed, you may experience problems with buffering, pausing and/or stuttering during playback. Dial-up connections do not have enough speed to be able to deliver the video content at a fast enough rate to provide efficient presentation of the film content.

Flash Player: To view and rate the films, you must also have an up-to-date version of the Adobe� Flash Player/Plug-in installed within your Web browser software. If you are having trouble viewing the films, it is strongly suggested that you upgrade or install the latest version of the Flash plug-in to your Web browser software. To do this, please CLICK HERE and follow the instructions provided.

Sound/Audio Support: To be able to hear the audio tracks within the films, your computer must be equipped with audio hardware and appropriate speakers and/or headphones.

IMPORTANT NOTE (Please Read): If, after assuring your system and internet connection meets the above requirements, you are still having trouble viewing and/or rating the films, please click here to submit our online help/contact form. When submitting the form, please include the name and version number for the Computer Operating System (e.g.: Windows XP/Vista, OS X 10.4.9, Fedora Core 6, etc.) and Web Browser software (e.g: Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 2.0+, Safari, etc.) that you are using to view the films.

THE FILM THUMBNAIL LIST & FILM INFORMATION

To view a film, simply click on the thumbnail of the film you wish to view in the panel at the bottom of the player. When the "PLAY" button appears in the player window, click this button to begin playback. The film thumbnails also display the film details along with your rating, once it has been cast. To get expanded details and information for a currently playing film, expand the individual panels under the "More About This Film" section.

THE FILM PLAYER & RATING SYSTEM

Viewing of Minimum Film Length Before Rating: Rating of each film will be enabled only after 80% of the film's duration is viewed. When viewing the player, you will see a counter in the "Film Rating" section indicating the time remaining before you are able to rate a film. Once the minimum viewing time has passed, rating will be enabled and the countdown message will be replaced by the 5-star rating system. Simply slide your mouse over the stars to indicate your rating and finally click to cast/record your rating. Once your initial rating has been cast, you can always make changes by clicking on the film and then selecting a new rating in the rating area.

Minimum of Ten (10) Film Ratings for Winner Selection: In order for your ratings to be considered eligible toward the tabulation of the top for films, and ultimately the grand prize winner, you must view and rate a minimum of ten (10) films. This has been calculated as a factor of 20% of the total number of festival films being screened in the online festival.

Rating Bias Rule: To keep the Film Festival competition as fair and equitable as possible for all participating filmmakers, Haydenfilms reserves the right to consider any member's set of ratings as ineligible toward the tabulation of the winning film if any indication of bias is found. The practice of rating 5 stars on a single film and 1 or 2 stars on the balance of the minimum required number of votes (10) unfairly harms the low-rated films and will not be tolerated. We have developed formulas to identify bias within rating sets and if bias is clearly indicated, that member's ratings will be considered ineligible. The simple rule is don't waste your time trying to bias for a specific film - we'll catch it in the end.

NOTE: The email address validation process for registration, the requirement that you watch a minimum of 80% of a film before rating, the rating bias rule, and the ten (10) rating minimum have all been implemented to provide an equitable competition for all festival entries. This allows the festival to remain fair and impartial for all of the festival films.