So you're in a band and you guys decided to submit some or all of your audio/video recordings to CHPA or you're just an active person that wants to help a band(s) get more popular or just make sure their works won't get lost over time. Whatever your incentive you should learn how to correctly submit materials to CHPA.

Generally speaking you can prepare your materials by yourself and sumbit them for a review by our team or you can provide us with the sources of your materials and we do everything else. Either way read on for details and decide how to best go about it.

The archive is comprised of so called proper releases. Proper release in essence is a multimedia file or files prepared in accordance with our quality standards that include bitrate quality, rules for writing file names and ID3 tags (ISO defined transliteration, Latin-1 encoding only), copyright conflict resolution, unified file formats and much more.

Creating proper releases isn't hard although it requires some level of dedication and expertise. Unfortunatelly, it isn't always possible to obtain sources (CDDA, DVD, VINYL, etc.) and create proper releases out of them that's why we separate the archive in two huge sections - proper releases and general submissions.

By doing so we ensure that our archive accommodates as much media as possible while providing best quality possible.

We at CHPA have a policy of hosting multimedia files in unified format. Below is the list of file formats we accept for each media category. Note that this only applies for proper releases. General submissions may be of any type althoug we recommend that you follow our guidelines anyway for this type of submissions.

• Audio: MP3
• Video: AVI, M2V, MKV
• Zines: TXT, PDF, DJVU
• Photo Sets: JPEG, etc.

Please, read carefully these notes:

• Only complete releases are allowed. No single tracks, trimmed videos, part of a zine or single photos;
• No self-made compilations are allowed for any category;
• All informational text files (track.names.txt, contact.txt, authors.txt, copyright.waiver.txt, etc.) you provide with proper release submissions must be written in English and be in either UTF-8 or CP1251 character encoding.

In case when you do not actually have the sources (or access to them) from which you could make a proper release but you have encoded versions of those your only option will be uploading those files to an incoming directory on our FTP server.

Even if you have sources but you're not a lawful copyright holder or a person who can act on behalf of the copyright holder you can't make a submission for a proper release. Therefore you are to follow guidelines outlined in this section.

For this type of submissions there are no any strict rules actually but we still would appeciate it if your submissions conformed to at least these requirements. Following these guidelines especially those that deal with file naming and tagging is very important. If you take some time before submitting your files and prepare them a little you can make life easier for many CHPA visitors.

Audio

• Output File Format: MP3
• ID3 Tag Version: 1.1 and 2
• File Meta Data: all files must be ID3 tagged and contain proper tags for Artist, Title, Album, Year, CD # (if it's a multi-cd release), Genre and Track Number fields
• Non-English Titles: must be transliterated according to ISO standards; no non Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) characters containing diaeresises (e.g. ä) or any other diacritic marks (e.g. â) are allowed
• File Naming Scheme: here's an example, first goes directory name then go files (01, 02, ...)
  A typical proper CHPA release looks something like this:
  Crucial_Band-Kickass_Album-2010/
     01-crucial_band-badass_song.mp3
     02-crucial_band-badass_song.mp3
     ...
• Upload Directory: incoming/music

Video

• File Format Container: AVI, M2V, MKV, MP4, MOV, WMV, etc.
• Resolution: min 320x480 with 25fps
• Video Codec: divx, xvid, mpeg4
• Audio Bitrate: min 128kbit/s CBR or VBR, preferrably 192-256kbit/s VBR
• Audio Codec: Lame MP3, AAC, AC, etc.
• Non-English Titles: must be transliterated according to ISO standards; no non Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) characters containing diaeresises (e.g. ä) or any other diacritic marks (e.g. â) are allowed
• File Naming Scheme: follow this example when naming your files:
  A single file or a set of single files:
  Crucial_Band-Badass_Music_Video_Title-2010/
     Crucial_Band-Badass_Music_Video_Title-2010avi
  
  Crucial_Band-Yet_Another_Badass_Music_Video_Title-2008/
     Crucial_Band-Yet_Another_Badass_Music_Video_Title-2008.avi
  
  A multi-file release:
  Crucial_Band-Badass_Music_Video_Title-2010/
     01-crucial_band-badass_music_video_title.avi
     02-crucial_band-badass_music_video_title.avi
     ...
• Upload Directory: incoming/video

Zines

• File Format: TXT, PDF, DJVU
• Non-English Titles: must be transliterated according to ISO standards; no non Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) characters containing diaeresises (e.g. ä) or any other diacritic marks (e.g. â) are allowed
• File Naming Scheme: follow this example when naming your files:
  Your submission should look like this:
  Zine_Title-Issue_02-2007/
     zine_title-issue_02-2007.pdf
     ...
• Upload Directory: incoming/zines

Photo Sets

• File Format: Any but JPEG is preferred
• Non-English Titles: must be transliterated according to ISO standards; no non Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) characters containing diaeresises (e.g. ä) or any other diacritic marks (e.g. â) are allowed
• File Naming Scheme: you should provide event title, name of a city and country where it occurred and date when it occurred. It should be meaningful and either represent even title (usually written on the poster/flyer) or a list of bands that played at this event starting with headliner and if there are too many bands to mention you are allowed to reduce this list to a sensible length. Follow this example when naming your files:
  Your submission should look like this:
  Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510/
     IMG_0001.jpg
     IMG_0002.jpg
     IMG_0003.jpg
     IMG_0004.jpg
     IMG_0005.jpg
     ...
• Upload Directory: incoming/photos

You have the original sources but either don't have time or knowledge and expertise to make a proper release. Follow these guidelines to prepare your materials for submission.

Audio

• If it's Audio CD create a rip of your CDDA (pressed or homemade), package everything into archive, add some information and upload it to our FTP server;
• If it's a video source from which you would love to create an audio rip (you can request both - audio and video) you need to create an ISO image out of the source and upload it to our FTP server;
• Alternatively, you could send us in physical storage units, i.e. the sources, and we do everything else.

When you're done creating MP3 files or ISO(s) from your source(s) you have to prepare them for submission. Please, follow these guidelines:

• File Formats
  Ripped MP3 file(s) or ISO image file(s) (one ISO per release, multiple ISOs are allowed only if it's a mutli-cd release);
• Track Names
  A list of track names in order that they appear on the source. This could be provided either in a separate text file named track.names or track.names.txt or in a picture of album cover/CD (if it contains track names) that gives a clear view of track names. For example, your text file could look like this:
  track.names.txt example
  

  01 Track Name of The First Track
  02 Track Name of The Second Track
  03 Track Name of The Third Track
  ...

• Source Images
  Images - picture taken with a camera or scanned - of the source as the proof of its existance ^* in JPEG;
• Album Art Images
  Images - pictures taken with a camera or scanned - for album cover and album art ^** (if any) in JPEG;
• Contact Information
  Contact information of the person who made this submission in a text file named contact.information or contact.information.txt and that contains full name of the person who submitted this material, contact e-mail and optionally any popular IM handle/ID plus phone number:
  contact.information.txt example
  

  John Smith
  john.smith@gmail.com
  icq 2948239
  aim xjsmithx

• Copyright Waiver
  Copyright waiver in a text file named copyright.waiver or copyright.waiver.txt; the text and structure of this document is free but it must unambiguously state your agreement to put the material being submitted into public domain without no further ability to re-enforce your copyright. We recommend that you use this copyright waiver template to make a copyright waiver and include with your submission.
• Packaging
  You must include everything - MP3/ISO files, *.txt and *.jpg - in a single directory which name reflects a) artist's name b) release title c) year of release, e.g. This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995;
  This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995/
     Track01.mp3
     Track02.mp3
     Track03.mp3
     ...
     contact.information.txt
     copyright.waiver.txt
• Create Archive File
  You then must create an archive - either ZIP, RAR or TAR/TAR.GZ - that contains that directory and is named identically, e.g. This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995.zip or This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995.tar.gz. Obviously, you're to submit very this archive file and not anything else.

* - You do it however you like it but these pictures must clearly demonstrate that this is what the submitted material was made of. No blurred, unsharp, too small, etc. pictures. The pictures must demonstrate that this is the real source.
** - These are used to create a proper release. Generally, we include a picture of a case/box - front and back, that's 2 files -, CD(s) itself - that's 1+ files - and inlay/album art - that may include 1+ more files too. Check out our proper releases for a reference.

You're expected to upload the resulting archive file to submissions.pending.processing/music directory of our FTP server.

Video

• Create an ISO image out of the source (be it DVD/DVDR/HDDVD/BLURAY/etc.) and upload it to our FTP server
• Alternatively, you could send us in physical storage units, i.e. the source, and we do everything else.

When you're done creating ISO file(s) from your source you have to prepare it for submission. Please, follow these guidelines:

• File Format
  ISO image file(s) (one ISO per release, multiple ISOs are allowed only if it's a mutli-cd release);
• Track Names
  A list of track names in order that they appear on the source. This could be provided either in a separate text file named track.names or track.names.txt or in a picture of album cover/CD (if it contains track names) that gives a clear view of track names. For example, your text file could look like this:
  track.names.txt example
  

  01 Track Name of The First Track
  02 Track Name of The Second Track
  03 Track Name of The Third Track
  ...

• Source Images
  Images - pictures taken with a camera or scanned - of the source as the proof of its existance ^* in JPEG;
• Album Art Images
  Images - pictures taken with a camera or scanned - for album cover and album art ^** (if any) in JPEG;
• Contact Information
  Contact information of the person who made this submission in a text file named contact.information or contact.information.txt and that contains full name of the person who submitted this material, contact e-mail and optionally any popular IM handle/ID plus phone number:
  contact.information.txt example
  

  John Smith
  john.smith@gmail.com
  icq 2948239
  aim xjsmithx

• Copyright Waiver
  Copyright waiver in a text file named copyright.waiver or copyright.waiver.txt; the text and structure of this document is free but it must unambiguously state your agreement to put the material being submitted into public domain without no further ability to re-enforce your copyright. We recommend that you use this copyright waiver template to make a copyright waiver and include with your submission.
• Packaging
  You must include everything - ISO files, *.txt and *.jpg - in a single directory which name reflects a) artist's name b) release title c) year of release, e.g. This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995; Take a look at this example:
  This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995/
     This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995.iso
     contact.information.txt
     copyright.waiver.txt
• Create Archive File
  You then must create an archive - either ZIP, RAR or TAR/TAR.GZ - that contains that directory and is named identically, e.g. This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995.zip or This_Is_Crucial_Hardcore_Band-Strong_As_Before-1995.tar.gz. Obviously, you're to submit very this archive file and not anything else.

* - You do it however you like it but these pictures must clearly demonstrate that this is what the submitted material was made of. No blurred, unsharp, too small, etc. pictures. The pictures must demonstrate that this is the real source.
** - These are used to create a proper release. Generally, we include a picture of a case/box - front and back, that's 2 files -, CD(s) itself - that's 1+ files - and inlay/album art - that may include 1+ more files too. Check out our proper releases for a reference.

You're expected to upload the resulting archive file to submissions.pending.processing/video directory of our FTP server.

Zines

• If you have electronic version of your zine(s) (TXT, PDF, DJVU) you can just submit those while providing additional information as stated below;
• If you only have physical copy/original of a zine you can send it us in via Postal Service.

If you're uploading electronic version of your zine(s) to FTP follow these guidelines to prepare your submission:

• File Format
  TXT, PDF, DJVU file(s) of the zine;
• Zine Information
  Zine information in a text file named zine.information or zine.information.txt and that contains the following information: a) zine title b) issue number c) year of release. For example, your text file could look like this:
  zine.information.txt example
  

  Title: Awesome Zine
  Issue#: 002
  Year of release: 2007

• Contact Information
  Contact information of the person who made this submission in a text file named contact.information or contact.information.txt and that contains full name of the person who submitted this material, contact e-mail and optionally any popular IM handle/ID plus phone number. For example your file could look like this:
  contact.information.txt example
  

  John Smith
  john.smith@gmail.com
  icq 2948239
  aim xjsmithx

• Copyright Waiver
  Copyright waiver in a text file named copyright.waiver or copyright.waiver.txt; the text and structure of this document is free but it must unambiguously state your agreement to put the material being submitted into public domain without no further ability to re-enforce your copyright. We recommend that you use this copyright waiver template to make a copyright waiver and include with your submission.
• Packaging
  You must include everything in a single directory which name reflects a) zine's title b) issue number c) year of release, e.g. Awesome_Zine-Issue_02-2007:
  Awesome_Zine-Issue_02-2007/
     Awesome_Zine-Issue_02-2007.pdf
     contact.information.txt
     copyright.waiver.txt
• Create Archive File
  You then must create an archive - either ZIP, RAR or TAR/TAR.GZ - that contains that directory and is named identically, e.g. Awesome_Zine-Issue_02-2007.zip or Awesome_Zine-Issue_02-2007.tar.gz. Obviously, you're to submit very this archive file and not anything else.

You're expected to upload the resulting archive file to submissions.pending.processing/zines directory of our FTP server.

Photo Sets

When submitting photos follow these guidelines to prepare your submission:

• File Format
  JPEG image files only;
• Event Information
  Event information provided in a text file named event.information or event.information.txt and that contains event title, name of a city and country where this event occurred, and the date when this event occurred implying that photos being submitted were taken on that date too. For example your file could look like this:
  event.information.txt example
  

  Event Title: Have Heart Live in Hong Kong
  City: Hong Kong
  Country: China
  Date: May 10, 2010

• Contact Information
  Contact information of the person who made this submission in a text file named contact.information or contact.information.txt and that contains full name of the person who submitted this material, contact e-mail and optionally any popular IM handle/ID plus phone number. For example your text file could look like this:
  contact.information.txt example
  

  John Smith
  john.smith@gmail.com
  icq 2948239
  aim xjsmithx

• Photographs Authors
  Photographs author's(-s') full name(s) in a text file named authors or authors.txt. For example:
  authors.txt example
  

  John Smith
  Neil Kowalsky

• Copyright Waiver
  Copyright waiver in a text file named copyright.waiver or copyright.waiver.txt; the text and structure of this document is free but it must unambiguously state your agreement to put the material being submitted into public domain without no further ability to re-enforce your copyright. We recommend that you use this copyright waiver template to make a copyright waiver and include with your submission.
• Packaging
  You must include everything in a single directory which name reflects a) country name b) city name c) event title d) year when this event occurred, e.g. Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510 (20100510 that's May 10, 2010). It should be meaningful and either represent even title (usually written on the poster/flyer) or a list of bands that played at this event starting with headliner and if there are too many bands to mention you are allowed to reduce this list to a sensible length. For example:
  Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510/
     IMG_0001.jpg
     IMG_0002.jpg
     IMG_0003.jpg
     IMG_0004.jpg
     ...
     authors.txt
     contact.information.txt
     copyright.waiver.txt
• Create Archive File
  You then must create an archive - either ZIP, RAR or TAR/TAR.GZ - that contains that directory and is named identically, e.g. Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510.zip or Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510.tar.gz. Obviously, you're to submit very this archive file and not anything else.

You're expected to upload the resulting archive file to submissions.pending.processing/photos directory of our FTP server.

You've got the sources, time and expertise to prepare a proper CHPA release. Great! We really appreciate your effort and would love to assist you by directing you to a couple of must-read documents. Please, remember that your release submission will be reviewed by our team before it can be added to the archive.

Audio

When making an audio proper release on your own you will find it absolutely helpful to keep Audio Release Guidelines at hand. Also, we created a step-by-step tutorial that walks you through the process from ripping to packaging your release and submitting it for review. You're strongly advised to stick to it and use the tools we use to ensure your releases are of the same quality as ours.

When you're ready to submit your release upload it to submissions.pending.review/music directory.

Video

Zines

• File Format
  TXT (a regular text file in either UTF-8 or CP1251 encoding), PDF (Adobe Acrobat PDF), DJVU (Dejavu).
• Non-English Titles: must be transliterated according to ISO standards; no non Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) characters containing diaeresises (e.g. ä) or any other diacritic marks (e.g. â) are allowed
• File Naming Scheme:
  follow this example when naming your files:
  Your Zine submission should look like this:
  Zine_Title-Issue_02-2007/
     zine_title-issue_02-2007.pdf
    ...
  
• Contact Information File
  you must provide contact information of the person who made this submission in a text file named contact.information or contact.information.txt and that contains full name of the person who submitted this e-Zine, contact e-mail and optionally any popular IM handle/ID plus phone number. For example your file could look like this:
  contact.information.txt example
  

  John Smith
  john.smith@gmail.com
  icq 2948239
  aim xjsmithx

• Copyright Waiver
  if you're a copyright holder for this submission you're required to provide a copyright waiver notice in a text file named copyright.waiver or copyright.waiver.txt; the text and structure of this document is free but it must unambiguously state your agreement to put the material being submitted into public domain without no further ability to re-enforce your copyright. We recommend that you use this copyright waiver template to make a copyright waiver and include with your submission.
• Packaging
  your submission must be an archive file that contains the zine file(s) inside a directory - all named similarly as shown in example above - and contact information and copyright.waiver files. For example, Zine_Title-Issue_02-2007.zip or Zine_Title-Issue_02-2007.tar.gz

When all is done you should upload your submission to submissions.pending.review/zines directory on our FTP server.

Photo Sets

When submitting photo sets to include into archive as proper release you should follow these requirements:

• File Format
  JPEG
• Non-English Titles: must be transliterated according to ISO standards; no non Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1) characters containing diaeresises (e.g. ä) or any other diacritic marks (e.g. â) are allowed
• File Naming Scheme:
  All files must be named like this: have_heart_live_in_hong_kong-hong_kong-china-20100510-000001-chpa.jpg, where have_heart_live_in_hong_kong is event title, hong_kong is name of a city where this event occurred, china is name of a country where this event occurred, 20100510 is year, month and day when this event occurred, 000001 is a file sequence number, and chpa is simply a suffix.
  

  The name for files and directory should be meaningful and either represent even title (usually written on the poster/flyer) or a list of bands that played at this event starting with headliner and if there are too many bands to mention you are allowed to reduce this list to a sensible length.

  Follow this example when naming your files:

  Your Zine submission should look like this:
  Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510/
     have_heart_live_in_hong_kong-hong_kong-china-20100510-000001-chpa.jpg
     have_heart_live_in_hong_kong-hong_kong-china-20100510-000002-chpa.jpg
     have_heart_live_in_hong_kong-hong_kong-china-20100510-000003-chpa.jpg
     have_heart_live_in_hong_kong-hong_kong-china-20100510-000004-chpa.jpg
     have_heart_live_in_hong_kong-hong_kong-china-20100510-000005-chpa.jpg
     ...
  

  You can use ReNamer for Windows or DigiKam for Linux to produce files named like that.

• Contact Information File
  you must provide contact information of the person who made this submission in a text file named contact.information or contact.information.txt and that contains full name of the person who submitted this e-Zine, contact e-mail and optionally any popular IM handle/ID plus phone number. For example your file could look like this:
  contact.information.txt example
  

  John Smith
  john.smith@gmail.com
  icq 2948239
  aim xjsmithx

• Copyright Waiver
  if you're a copyright holder for this submission you're required to provide a copyright waiver notice in a text file named copyright.waiver or copyright.waiver.txt; the text and structure of this document is free but it must unambiguously state your agreement to put the material being submitted into public domain without no further ability to re-enforce your copyright. We recommend that you use this copyright waiver template to make a copyright waiver and include with your submission.
• Packaging
  your submission must be an archive file that contains the zine file(s) inside a directory - all named similarly as shown in example above - and contact information and copyright.waiver files. For example, Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510.zip or Have_Heart_Live_in_Hong_Kong-Hong_Kong-China-20100510.tar.gz

When all is done you should upload your submission to submissions.pending.review/photos directory on our FTP server.

You will obviously need a FTP client software to connect to our FTP server. We assume you've got a handle on the basic principles of this whole FTP thing. If not make sure your read FTP The True Way sub-section of Discover Archive section on our site.

When you're ready to upload your files just connect to our FTP server using the following information

host c-h-p-a.org
port 21
login ftp or anonymous

and go to:

• submissions.pending.processing for submissions that will be processed and turned into proper releases by our team;
• submissions.pending.review for proper releases submissions;
• incoming directory to upload everything else.

You can send your materials via your local Post Office in case you don't want to or can't prepare materials for submission all by yourself. Check if there's a postal address of someone available in your country below so that you won't have to send your CD/DVD half-across the world. We also would love you to know that we collect physical copies of the materials we host and although this isn't our main focus we're always happy to add a copy of your record to our real-life archive.

Here's the list of addresses in various countries of the world you can send your materials to:

• USA
  ---
  ---
  Want to help? Contact us!
  ---
  ---
• Canada
  ---
  ---
  Want to help? Contact us!
  ---
  ---
• Ukraine
  114 Kievskaja Str., 21
  Simferopol
  Autonomous Republic of Crimea
  Ukraine
  95000
• Russia
  ---
  ---
  Want to help? Contact us!
  ---
  ---

When sending in you sources you'll have to write a follow-up e-mail message and include the following information:

• Either description (what is it? title? etc.) of the source you sent us or/and photographs of the source (if you can make them);
• Contact information of the person who sent us the sources, i.e. you, your contact e-mail and optionally any popular IM handle/ID plus phone number:
  For example you might write something like this:
  

  John Smith
  john.smith@gmail.com
  icq 2948239
  aim xjsmithx

• Copyright waiver in a text file named copyright.waiver or copyright.waiver.txt; the text and structure of this document is free but it must unambiguously state your agreement to put the material being submitted into public domain without no further ability to re-enforce your copyright.
  

  Use these copyright waiver templates for each submission category: Audio, Video, Zines, Photo Sets.

In short our Multimedia Hosting Policy states that any material you submit to our archive is put into public domain. That means that anyone can do anything with your work including and not limited to creating derivative works, commercial use with the purpose of financial benefit, public performance, radio or television broadcasting or any other diffusion IS allowed.

Please, read the full version of our Multimedia Hosting Policy to fully understand what you're doing.

Now what if you read about all these things such as 1080p, fps, bitrates, codecs and other stuff and you realize you get lost but you still want to submit your material? It's still piece of cake! You just ask us to help you with your submission and we'll readily, with pleasure land you a hand!

You can reach us through various IM services, forum, e-mail or even on the phone!