Quality translation vs quick release?

[_Sin_]

Originally Posted by zalas

If you give yourself a really short deadline and then strive to get the best quality out given the deadline, you're still giving speed higher priority than quality, because your quality will be limited in part by the speed. Basically, your main goal is your speed, and if possible get the quality as high as possible without sacrificing speed. If you say, "I want X quality and I don't care however long it takes," then you're actually aiming for a certain quality and if you finish faster, so be it.

But how can we judge that the aim of a fansub was speed or quality just by seeing how many days after the airing it came out? Only because the difference was 1 day, can we really say with 100% certainty that the primary aim was speed? It could have been that translating/editing the episode was easy and took less time than the older episodes of AB(Lucier that himself in another thread that AB's level of Japanese was easier than other animes' to begin with) or the group spent more actual time on the sub (I mean actual "work hours", i.e. they spend 10 hours in a row on a sub instead of 2 hours a day (1 day vs 5 days)).
Unfortunately these are all assumptions until Lucier clears it up or we find more translation mistakes, a worse raw quality etc in the later episodes than in the first episode that had 6+ days between the airing and the release.

[Tofusensei]

Hehe, I think the majoity of people always associated speed with Lunar. Not to knock the quality of their work much, they are probably the best of the speedsubbers, but to say that Luner places no value on releasing as fast as they can , come on fellas, let us harbor no illusions here. ^^;

-Tofu

[Lucier]

I'm still awaiting the translation errors... (I'm seriously interested if I made mistakes, so I can try to avoid them in the future!)

I can easily explain the difference in release times...
We all have lives.
Simple as that... One week I was sick, another I had finals...
There's others on our team to, and they also have similar time-eaters. (Jobs especially!)

Today happens to be AI day, so I'll share the schedule with you guys... (the *big* lunar secret lol...)

Actually, I'll give last weeks schedule since it's already done.

Me: Wake up at 9-10AM and wait for raw to download.
11:30: Get raw, start translation. (Start uploading raw to FTP dump)
1pm: Finish translation, Send to editor for first pass.
1:05: Editor works on first-pass while waiting for raw. (Grammar/spelling checks and such)
1:40ish: Raw is finished on FTP and edited (first pass) is sent to timer. (Encoder starts pre-coding the raw now)
(Sometime between 1:40 and 3PM the Typesettor does the signs/titles and anything else needing typesetting, the second edit pass is done in this time too, and any lines are changed in the timed version)
3PM: Timing is complete (remember, this is only a 6KB script, it doesn't take more than 1-3 hours to work on)
3:20PM: QC begins, (Take the script and run it with vobsub and the raw in media player... watch it, note errors, and send to the head-QC to fix... this is the step most groups don't do to well from my experience)
4:30PM: QC complete and encode begins.

Sadly, last week our encoder had to leave at 5PM till about 10PM (he had an arragment he needed to attend to)..
10PM, encoder returns, and starts distro. (Used torrent distro cause it's easy... encoder seeds, and 4-8 distro members hop on and help move the torrent quickly...)
10:40- Distro is done, and bot-loading starts. (Someone fast loads the dumpFTP and or the bots)
after bots are loaded, release around 11-11:30

After ~12 hours, it's done and out... (That wasn't so hard, was it?)
Some weeks I can't translate till sunday or monday, some weeks our timer is out, etc...
Many problems can happen, so some weeks are slower than others...

We don't "Speedsub" or go any faster than any other team... We just do our best in a coordinate fashion. Speed is *NEVER* put in front of quality... we've even called back releases 2 minutes before release due to a spelling error spotted by a distro member at the last moment...

I have no idea what AFKS schedule is, but the regularly release on sunday afternoon, roughly 24 hours after the raw airs... which is also under the said "48 hours which is what those Naruto groups do..."
According to that, AFK also disreguards quality for speed, which is also very untrue. (I've known AFK To be a good high-quality standing group, just like us...)

I personally beleive speed and quality are unrelated...
Some, shall I say, beginners, may through a naruto sub together in 15 hours, and do a horrible job, but that does NOT mean that an experienced team that loves what they work on can not do a *great* job in the same amount of time.

(The reason I didn't wanna use this weeks AI schedule is because Samurai 7 is also this week, and being worked on at the same time, by the same editor, typesettor AND timer, so it's kinda ackward this week ^^;...)

And I apoloige to starcreator for hijacking his thread... I didn't want this to turn into "lunar's AZ baby discussion thread"... but I felt it was neccessary to reply to Gipface's flame.

Sin, I agree with what you've said and thank you for your support ^_^..

[Lucier]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

Hehe, I think the majoity of people always associated speed with Lunar. Not to knock the quality of their work much, they are probably the best of the speedsubbers, but to say that Luner places no value on releasing as fast as they can , come on fellas, let us harbor no illusions here. ^^;

-Tofu

I didn't see your post when I wrote mine, so I'll try to answer here too...

I think I somewhat answered in the last post, but just want to be clear...
It's not that we place *no value* on releasing quickly...
We love these series we do, and want to share them with the fans as quickly as possible...
But quality will always become before speed. If we let speed become our main priority, then we'd be doing a disservice to the fans, as well as the anime itself!

I'll also openly admit that we *do* make mistakes... we're human as well, and not infalliable.... but we certainly try our best to avoid them.

[DekaMaster]

We release sailor moon 2-4 days after it airs. By some people's logic here that is speed subbing. But I would like to know how? The translator is very good and if he has free time we can get it out sooner rather than later. There have been times when it was 7-8 days that it took to get an ep out. I will admit there are groups that just want to get stuff out reguardless.

[DekaMaster]

Originally Posted by Lucier

I didn't see your post when I wrote mine, so I'll try to answer here too...

I think I somewhat answered in the last post, but just want to be clear...
It's not that we place *no value* on releasing quickly...
We love these series we do, and want to share them with the fans as quickly as possible...
But quality will always become before speed. If we let speed become our main priority, then we'd be doing a disservice to the fans, as well as the anime itself!

I'll also openly admit that we *do* make mistakes... we're human as well, and not infalliable.... but we certainly try our best to avoid them.

Mistakes happen. The best people can do is learn from them and try not to make them again.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Lucier

I didn't see your post when I wrote mine, so I'll try to answer here too...

I think I somewhat answered in the last post, but just want to be clear...
It's not that we place *no value* on releasing quickly...
We love these series we do, and want to share them with the fans as quickly as possible...
But quality will always become before speed. If we let speed become our main priority, then we'd be doing a disservice to the fans, as well as the anime itself!

I'll also openly admit that we *do* make mistakes... we're human as well, and not infalliable.... but we certainly try our best to avoid them.

Just curious, but what happens if you come across a line or two you can't understand? Do you just make an educated guess?

-Tofu

[SimplyEd]

Really easy and i shall side with my favorite fansub-group Lunar: quality before quantity.
Still, it's just as true to say that a healthy combination of both marks the "winner" in this business.
And i don't mind typos now and then...as long as it still conveys the original intention/meaning i'm fine. And i'm very proud of the fact that my japanese has recently become good enough to translate "unclear" parts for myself, so i don't mind "liberal" translations as well..as long as there are no drastic changes or editing in general.

[Lucier]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

Just curious, but what happens if you come across a line or two you can't understand? Do you just make an educated guess?

-Tofu

If I'm not sure on a line, I tend to go discuss it with other translators.

One translator in Lunar is better than myself, and he helps me out with difficult lines frequently.

If he's unavailable, I try to discuss the difficult line with TL-friends in other groups.

Though when not understanding, doing a little research and trying to figure it out is always helpful ^_^
And sometimes it's just infrence (Chuuka -> Tsuuka -> Teiu ka) and such... Or in AZ baby 14 today, YochiYochi is a 'baby talk' variation of 'yoshiyoshi'...
Hard to explain, but as a TL, I'm sure you understand ^_^

Anyway, I tend to try not to guess... as guessing is inaccruate, and doesn't help me learn. If I ask and get a correct answer, I'm learning, and that's important to me.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Lucier

If I'm not sure on a line, I tend to go discuss it with other translators.

One translator in Lunar is better than myself, and he helps me out with difficult lines frequently.

If he's unavailable, I try to discuss the difficult line with TL-friends in other groups.

Though when not understanding, doing a little research and trying to figure it out is always helpful ^_^
And sometimes it's just infrence (Chuuka -> Tsuuka -> Teiu ka) and such... Or in AZ baby 14 today, YochiYochi is a 'baby talk' variation of 'yoshiyoshi'...
Hard to explain, but as a TL, I'm sure you understand ^_^

Anyway, I tend to try not to guess... as guessing is inaccruate, and doesn't help me learn. If I ask and get a correct answer, I'm learning, and that's important to me.

Hehe, if I get really stumped I just go straight to the source and ask Japanese people >_< "Hey, what does such-and-such mean??" "Why do you want to know?" "I dunno, just curious O_O;; I heard it somewhere" I'd like to ask some professional translators what they do when they get a stumper, because that's their job on the line.

-Tofu

[Spyre]

You know stc, I'd be willing to go out on a limb here and buck the trend. I'll say depending on the series, go for speed. On the series that are certain to be licensed (something like Pita-Ten) whats the point in putting out a perfect fansub? It'll just be redone better professionally in a couple of months anyway, and now the leechers have another reason to get the dvds (being your version wasnt perfect). I'd only strive for the quality in something that'll never get licensed, or at least will take years. Something like Dr. Rin.

Anyway thats my 2 cents.

[Takato-chan]

Originally Posted by Spyre

You know stc, I'd be willing to go out on a limb here and buck the trend. I'll say depending on the series, go for speed. On the series that are certain to be licensed (something like Pita-Ten) whats the point in putting out a perfect fansub? It'll just be redone better professionally in a couple of months anyway, and now the leechers have another reason to get the dvds (being your version wasnt perfect). I'd only strive for the quality in something that'll never get licensed, or at least will take years. Something like Dr. Rin.

Anyway thats my 2 cents.

Even for series that I know will be licensed, I always aim to pull the best translation possible within my abilities. Even though I translate for myself moreso than the group (thus I don't work on the mainstream projects), I have no problem spending a month on an episode (not that I've ever done that before... XD) to ensure that the highest quality translation comes out... and if I do a good job of it, then it'll be better than the licensed version...

If you can get better quality from taking more and more time, I'll wait a month... *nods*

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Takato-chan

If you can get better quality from taking more and more time, I'll wait a month... *nods*

A month, haha... That's a good one...

It'd be nice if we were talking months, but we're getting closer to "years". :x

-Tofu

[zindryr]

Anyways, a reply to the thread creator about help. I get back into America in about a month, if the problem isn't solved by then I'd be glad to help out with fixing up translations. I assume things will be solved by then, but was just going to make sure you guys knew someone was willing to help.

[SirCanealot]

Yeah, there's no set time limit on a quality product.
I mean, throw this into your brain machines:
Hour translation, hour timing, hour editing, hour encoding.
Why not? If all your people were at the top of their field, say...

I'll also say: A good product (fansub) is good forever. A bad product (fansub) is bad forever.
Take your pick.

[kuru]

Originally Posted by SirCanealot

I'll also say: A good product (fansub) is good forever. A bad product (fansub) is bad forever.
Take your pick.

But here we're talking more of choosing between "a not perfect fansub" or "no fansub at all".

It isn't the case of a translator needing more time to work. They've been without any translator for almost a year.

Hikari no Kiseki doesn't do Naruto or other "hot" series several groups are fighting to release. They do stuff nobody else seems to want to do.

If they don't do another episode of Comet-san somebody else will do ? I doubt. That's why I say that I'll take a not-so-perfect version of episode 17 of Comet-san if the option is to never see a perfect version in my lifetime.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by SirCanealot

Yeah, there's no set time limit on a quality product.
I mean, throw this into your brain machines:
Hour translation, hour timing, hour editing, hour encoding.
Why not? If all your people were at the top of their field, say...

I'll also say: A good product (fansub) is good forever. A bad product (fansub) is bad forever.
Take your pick.

I don't understand your post at all, can you clarify?

-Tofu

[CompShrink]

Ashiteruze Baby is a really easy thing to translate. Think about it, the main characters are a high school kid and a kindergardener. And for those who have been watching, the high schooler is starting to talk more and more like he's a kindergardener.... so yes, it actually makes since to have gotten easier. I know I understand a lot more of the dub without even putting effort into it.

As for HnK, it's a real shame they can't find a translator, I think a above decent level sub is better than none, because it seems like that's the case for them.

[Kimura-sensei]

Originally Posted by StarCreator

So, at this point, I have about 10 or so scripts that fall -far- below our quality standards. Other than requiring a massive translation overhaul, very little more work is needed to release them.

So, I wanted to ask an opinion - if it meant throwing our high quality standards out the window, would you rather we just release the scripts in a possibly incorrect and incomprehensible form, or would you rather wait longer until we can get -someone- to help us out and check and fix the translations?

I would get another translator. You're not doing any service to anyone, especially your editors who will be struggling to make heads out of tails with the crappy trans. Believe me, I've been there.



As for Lunar's Aibaby discussion... I've always believed in quality over speed. The latest fansubbing craze seem to forget that fansubbers sub for fun, not for bragging rights of being first to release an episode.

[dreamless]

I'm not against speed subs, but at least make it comprehensible and without too much gramatical errors... I think there's a line that need to be drawn about the quality, and that for me is to convey the meaning of the dialogs corretly and without gramatical errors. The most I can look past is some weird phrasing or strange use of words... but the foundamentals must be held correct. that's my two cents.