HBO Zune Contest Results

Our Zune Giveaway was not without its headaches - but when all was said and done, we're pretty happy with the results. We served up over 130,000 movies and more than 50,000 songs, logged a total of 10,000 votes... and we've got some winners for you. First and foremost, there are our four Zune winners; the following four entrants garnered enough votes in their categories to go home with a shiny new Halo 3 Zune, courtesy of Bungie Studios! (The audio files are identical to those available during the public voting - but most of the video files have been replaced with higher-resolution versions.)

• Original Song: Fury to Fire (6.4 mb), by mothergoat
• Parody: The Ultimate Halo (4.1 mb), by BigV1027
• Montage: Halo 3 Montacular: WMP9 | QuickTime, by Philltacular
  WMP9: 320x240, 12.6 mb | QuickTime: 320x240, 13.5 mb
• Machinima: Weekend Boredom: WMP9 | QuickTime, by Hellhawk
  WMP9: 720x480, 70.2 mb | QuickTime: 720x480, 75.9 mb

Congratulations to all four! But the good news is, that's not all we've got! Bungie has agreed to provide some extra prizes, because 1) the talent shown by all the submissions was pretty amazing, and 2) some of the contests were tremendously close. (The Parody category was decided by a single vote!) The following four entrants came in second in their respective categories, and will take home an awesome Carnage Zone street sign.

• Original Song: Silver Halo 2 (6.7 mb), by SilverBrin
• Parody: Mr. Teamkill Rocket Guy (1 mb), by Schedonnardus
• Montage: Shameless Beta Testing: WMP9 | QuickTime, by retsamolah
  WMP9: 853x480, 43.7 mb | QuickTime: 853x480, 41.7 mb
• Machinima: Halo Starcraft: WMP9 | QuickTime, by Major.Dump
  WMP9: 1024x768, 71.1 mb | QuickTime: 1024x768, 77 mb

Finally, we have a special award that we're labeling 'Judges' Award'. This was an entry that the inital judging crew universally felt was a spectacular example of what we were looking for... but one that the voting public didn't seem to notice. (In the initial private voting, it grabbed 25% of all points, crushing its competition... in public discussion, both on our forum and in the #hbo irc channel, it was praised extensively... but in the public voting, it came in a dismal 5th, with only 11% of the vote.) It wasn't funny - but the filming was fantastic, the mods were really well done, the integration of older Bungie game footage was inspired, and the music fit the piece perfectly. It's one of those films that machinima makers should watch as a model; it does most things very, very right.

This film was Zukan's Be Human, the story of a Sentinel who wants more from life. You can grab a high-res (720x576) version in WMP9 (53.4 mb) or QuickTime (53.1 mb) formats; look at it again, and see if you don't agree with the initial judges after all!

Zukan's special prize for the 'Judges' Choice' category is a prototype helmet for the Halo 3 Legendary Edition (without the discs, of course) - this is not one of the production helmets you'll be able to buy once the game is released, this is one of the initial (and extremely rare) prototypes created to ensure final quality.

Congratulations to all of our winners!

And a HUGE thank you to everyone who submitted, and to everyone who participated in the voting phases; this contest couldn't have happened without all of you!

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