Opinions on karaoke in fansubs

[edogawaconan]

Originally Posted by Toua

If you're talking about softsubbed \k karaoke, you can just turn on Pre-buffer subpictures in VSFilter's DirectVobSub (green arrowy taskbar icon during softsubbed video playback). It will get rid of pretty effects, but subs will take less CPU power.

yay to redundancy

[Fimbulvetr]

Originally Posted by Zalis

The only thing that really bugs with with karaoke is softsubbed karaoke. It's pointless and it just creates lag for a good number of viewers. I'd rather groups just hardsubbed the karaoke even on otherwise softsubbed releases, if they're going to do karaoke effects. (...) Or if 100% softsub is the goal, just do simple song TL with no effects, like Hauu~'s Higurashi Kai release.

Allow me to disagree here. There is nothing pointless about softsubbing in general, and that applies to the OP/ED parts just the same. Most subbers that I know of who use softsubbed karaoke do include a version of their subs without any effects, for people without proper renderer or the necessary CPU power. Enabling vsfilter's prebuffering is not the greatest solution imo, but it should disable all effects and thus decrease CPU time, even if it's not just plain \k.
Btw, which fansub groups do softsubbed karaoke? Could you point me to some, I'd really like to see that. I think Mentar still hardsubs even the translation lines of the OP/ED parts .. (correct me if I'm wrong)

Originally Posted by Zalis

People can look for clean OP/ED online if they really need it, and it's not like we're entitled to 100% pristine untouched files free of hardsubs/logos/etc.

Noone is entitled to anything at all here but that is beside the point. Of course people can download raws, guess what I'm doing most of the time, but that doesn't make hardsubbing any better.


After this general softsub vs hardsub rant, about karaoke itself: I think most karaoke effects I saw in fansubs are way too flashy and intrusive, it tends to feel like I'm watching the karaoke instead of the actual OP/ED animation. I'm not saying effects can't be a bit more complex than \k - but you only need 'moderate' effects (like simple grow&glow) to already draw away a lot (imo too much) of attention. I'm not even talking about about the more ridiculous stuff like letters moving around half the screen, rotating words, or font sizes bigger than half the screen (ZX Mai-HiME ED anyone?) - that's just too stupid to even comment on.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by Toua

If you're talking about softsubbed \k karaoke, you can just turn on Pre-buffer subpictures in VSFilter's DirectVobSub (green arrowy taskbar icon during softsubbed video playback). It will get rid of pretty effects, but subs will take less CPU power.

True, but the problem with this is that moving ASS signs also stop working, likewise with fades. Therefore, I would not recommend this unless you're working on an absolutely borderline CPU.

Originally Posted by Fimbulvetr

Btw, which fansub groups do softsubbed karaoke? Could you point me to some, I'd really like to see that. I think Mentar still hardsubs even the translation lines of the OP/ED parts .. (correct me if I'm wrong)

Eclipse, gg... it depends. Sometimes we hardsub, sometimes we don't. Insert songs are mostly softsubbed.

After this general softsub vs hardsub rant, about karaoke itself: I think most karaoke effects I saw in fansubs are way too flashy and intrusive, it tends to feel like I'm watching the karaoke instead of the actual OP/ED animation. I'm not saying effects can't be a bit more complex than \k - but you only need 'moderate' effects (like simple grow&glow) to already draw away a lot (imo too much) of attention. I'm not even talking about about the more ridiculous stuff like letters moving around half the screen, rotating words, or font sizes bigger than half the screen (ZX Mai-HiME ED anyone?) - that's just too stupid to even comment on.

Well, you just did. And you're such a party pooper ... here, have a hanky to cry. *hands over a box of Kleenex*

The Mai-HiME ED is a series of still frames without animation. And here, the effect was to let the Karaoke appear in "free spots" in the still frames. Of course some purists will complain (they always will), but there were several people who enjoyed the relatively unusual approach.

Don't like it - do it yourself or buy the box. Simple as that

[Light-]

If multiple groups are releasing a show, I tend to download the version from the group with the nicest (imo) karaoke (unless they chose a really bad font for the dialogue subtitles)

Why? I like karaoke. As long as the effect flows nicely and doesnt make my eyes bleed. \k and \kf karaoke is a bit plain for me (except in insert songs, then its ok, but for OP/ED karaoke its a bit plain)

I also like to see cool karaoke and wonder/try and figure out how the artist achieved that effect.
It just makes the subs more interesting to me.

[Fimbulvetr]

Originally Posted by Mentar

The Mai-HiME ED is a series of still frames without animation. And here, the effect was to let the Karaoke appear in "free spots" in the still frames. Of course some purists will complain (they always will), but there were several people who enjoyed the relatively unusual approach.

It was unusual , and probably an interesting experiment, and it does get plus points for furigana (I just love that part in jfs' karas) but in all it took too much space. For my taste
Of course there are much worse examples, like karaoke that is actually bad. I only mentioned the Mai-HiME ED one because it appeared on a release that actually mattered to me.
Rec OP, ok it was Ayu's after all: characters moving vertically up half the screen; some FMA OP by a group I can't remeber: japanese letters moving diagonally towards the center of the screen while inflating from normal size to even bigger than Mai-HiME ED romaji before they vanish, or Keep's Chrno Chrusade OP which was so overloaded with bad effects I still see it in my nightmares

edit: After rewatching Mai-HiME ED I have to add: It also gets plus points for sticking strictly to revised Hepburn - you don't see ō used that often. If only Eclipse was sticking a bit closer to Hepburn too ..

[Mystique]

This leads me to my question, what's your opinion on karaoke, karaoke effects, what kind of karaoke would you like to see in fansubs, etc? I'm interested in knowing what other people think about this, since I generally seem to belong to the minority in this subject.

Opinion on karaoke~
It's how I learnt to sing most of the Japanese tunes over the last 4 years to be honest :P
(thinks she's the only person in fansubland who sincerely appreciates and enjoys well desgined karaoke in anime) >.>

Originally Posted by Shouta

I don't do it. Would use up too much of my time and wouldn't be worth it.

On the whole, I don't think it's necessary. Folks that can sing it will be able to after a few times listening to it anyway so it's just wasted time/space.

No... I don't have that talent to pick up lyrics in any language by ear, I needed to memorise the kana and words first, so karaoke was neccesary.

I adore them simply because I lived in Tokyo and became a karaoke whore and the majority of my songs I sang were all OP and ED tunes (but I sang them in their full 3/4min version)
So it became a totally fun way to speed up my reading and speaking skills (as well as singing skills) ^^

So yes, lol all karaoke peeps have my sincere appreciation for their time and effort into making them for anime series that I adore and I hope to eventually learn to do this myself someday.

I can only assume those who'd hate them would be encoders, people who hate singing or some TS'ers/K-timers themselves for the effort that's needed or for the processor leeching it does. (for heavy effected ones)

As for what kind of karaoke I prefer to see?
The same kind of design aspects I expect to see on a well made website: simple, looks effortless and actually pertains to its purpose.
Purpose of karaoke (to me) is to show indication of time of the lyrics (and if possible) to set up the next line so the singer can see ahead.

I hate flashy, heavy effect-filled karaoke where the focus is:
'look at the showy effects it has!'
Rather than;
'Here are the words and indication of time presented in a nice simple format, perhaps slightly designed to relate to the theme of the OP or ED'
Same goes with bad use of colour and font in relation to the background it's on or if it's too difficult to read;
Bad design is a general turn off for me.

[Schneizel]

Rec OP, gg's release iirc: characters moving vertically up half the screen;

That was Ayu's.

[mandarb916]

don't like subs in OP/ED at all...I get rid of subs when possible anyways (ie. removing the sub track and remuxing, etc)...hate not being able to remove that distraction in OP/ED. I'd snag raws, but older series raws aren't exactly easy or possible to get...

[Starks]

I don't mind AFX karaoke so long as it isn't ridiculous or overly intrusive.

My view of intrusive and ridiculous is something perhaps best represented by a recent fansub of a popular Spring '08 series. When I watched the encode, I had the pleasure of seeing something that vaguely resembled sperm descending to the middle of the screen as each kana and kanji was highlighted.

[Zalis]

Allow me to disagree here. There is nothing pointless about softsubbing in general, and that applies to the OP/ED parts just the same. Most subbers that I know of who use softsubbed karaoke do include a version of their subs without any effects, for people without proper renderer or the necessary CPU power. Enabling vsfilter's prebuffering is not the greatest solution imo, but it should disable all effects and thus decrease CPU time, even if it's not just plain \k.
Btw, which fansub groups do softsubbed karaoke? Could you point me to some, I'd really like to see that. I think Mentar still hardsubs even the translation lines of the OP/ED parts .. (correct me if I'm wrong)

gg's Geass R2 had softsubbed karaoke with no "plain sub" alternative; needless to say I switched over to Eclipse's release before too long. Sure, I could change those settings to make things smoother, but I'd rather have files that I can DL, open, and play with no problems or extra steps. I realize that softsubbing in general has its advantages, but the karaoke in that Geass release looked worse than the average hardsubbed karaoke, and combined with the playback problems, it added up to the worst of both worlds.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by Zalis

gg's Geass R2 had softsubbed karaoke with no "plain sub" alternative; needless to say I switched over to Eclipse's release before too long. Sure, I could change those settings to make things smoother, but I'd rather have files that I can DL, open, and play with no problems or extra steps. I realize that softsubbing in general has its advantages, but the karaoke in that Geass release looked worse than the average hardsubbed karaoke, and combined with the playback problems, it added up to the worst of both worlds.

you're doing it wrong
(hint: plain \k karaokes aren't perceptibly slower to render than standard text lines are)

[jfs]

Ok since this has been mentioned a few times recently, let me just give the technical explanation why \k is in practice not any slower to render than plain, static text.

This discussion only covers TextSub (VSFilter), I don't know what other renderers do and their use is still very limited. Also, everything that goes for \k also goes for \kf, \K and \ko. They use the same rendering technique.
This will also explain a funny "artifact" some karaokers might have seen when using \kf with vertical karaoke.

First, while TextSub does have a function that should tell whether a line is animated or not (presumably so it could avoid re-rendering static lines for every frame) that function is empty, it just says "return true;" - yeah, every line is always animated no matter what's in it.

Next, the way \k effects are handled is using a "switchpoints" algorithm.
TextSub renders (up to) three different single-channel 6-bit bitmaps for each line, fill, border and shadow. (Border = Shadow - Fill. Shadow = Fill "expanded" to give an outline.)
When the subtitle is to be painted onto the video, TextSub builds a list of switchpoints for each line component. A switchpoint has two parts: Colour (which includes alpha) and end-coordinate. The end-coordinate is which pixel index on the scanline the colour is valid up till.
(When a line has a vector-\clip, the vector drawing is rendered as a fourth 6-bit image which is used to mask the other layers while painting.)

When there is no \k effect, there is only one switchpoint for each component, which has the colour of it and the end-coordinate set to infinity (actually 0xFFFFFFFF).
When there is a \k effect, the current position of the highlight is calculated for the frame, and a switchpoint is added at the right coordinate. This is very fact to calculate. The pixel size of every syllable is already known (because the rasteriser breaks the line into "words" at every change in formatting - \k tags are formatting) and for \kf effects, getting the position within the syllable is a matter of simple linear interpolation between the endpoints of the syllable.

Now for painting an actual component.
For every scanline of the component, loop over each switchpoint. For each switchpoint, paint its colour to the video frame, using the component as mask and optionally also masking with a vector-\clip mask. When the endpoint of a switchpoint is reached, do the same for the next switchpoint, continuing where the previous one left off.
This is repeated for every scanline of the component. Also very fast.
(The case of just a single switchpoint, ie. no \k effect, is questionably optimised by removing the switchpoints-loop. I think this in practice only saves a few hundred or maybe thousand machine instructions in total for each component, but I haven't checked the actual code.)

For the reason why \k effects don't rotate when you use \frz (and family): They are scanline-based and the switchpoints are assumed to always be on the same coordinate on every scanline. The switchpoints can't change between scanlines for the same component.

I hope this explains why \k effects are fast and can't be a reason for absurd slowdown.
Now, \t effects (of any kind) is a wholly different matter. Those do slow things down, even horribly much. Unfortunately I haven't managed to figure out the real reason behind this.


tl;dr: \k effects are fast, by design they can't be more than marginally slower than static lines.

[Soichiro]

jfs, I have no idea what you just said.

Overall, I think kara is a nice thing to have in a release, but only if it's decent. It has to fit the video/song and not distract from the animation. I also think Triad-style karas can be nice if they're styled properly (such as a.f.k's SZS OP/ED). However, there are some things groups should never do in a kara. One is to use an ugly, blocky font, such as in Ureshii-Saizen's RD. And of course, the other is to have effects flying all over the screen like in Mishicorp's VK OP. Both are very bad practices and can lead to very ugly karas.

However, I don't see why it really matters if a group does kara or not. Yes, karaokes are nice to have, but the important thing people should watch for is the subtitles and the animation. If one group that was subbing a series had translations and editing that were far better than every other group, but their kara was so bad that it was unwatchable, I'd just download theirs and skip the OP/ED every time. If I really wanted to watch the OP/ED of that series I could just download another group's version just for the decent karas.

It seems like the more fancy stuff people come up with, the more they forget what fansubs are supposed to be for.

[日本ひきこもり協会]

Originally Posted by Soichiro

One is to use an ugly, blocky font, such as in Ureshii-Saizen's RD.

Or SHS/The-Metal's RD OP karaoke? Like where you can literally not (or with enough endeavors to calculate pi by hand) read the translation and the unspoken parts.

Karaoke is fine as long as it's not too flashy and readable. Readability is to most important thing after all. Hinting at Mishicorp's VK op karaoke.

[Jaka]

has anyone watched an op with and w/o karaoke?

it seems like with kara, i just seem to stare at the effects and miss out on the op animation... but w/o, i seem to pay attention to the op animation.

(i think it's how you watch fansubs and pay attention to subtitles, you just can't resist)

is it just me?

[max2k]

Originally Posted by Soichiro

It seems like the more fancy stuff people come up with, the more they forget what fansubs are supposed to be for.

Sorry but you forget that Fansubs are not only for the joyment of the Leachers. The Subber should have some fun working on theyr Projects to, is a Hobby....

[Starks]

I standby my opinion that Saizen's karaoke for the OP of Soul Eater pretty much set the bar in terms of eye candy/cancer in Spring 2008.

<_<

[dj_tjerk]

What? And here I'm trying to do my best to make eyecandy/over-the-top kara (that may or may not hurt your eyes :P). I have to admit though, it does look a little bit like sperm ;P (the 'soul' in the episode itself is moving/animated, not a still image.. but i guess doing an animated particle in .ass is deadly)

[Oxtail]

The SS-Eclipse(I don't know the fansub scene enough to know who to credit) OP for Kyouran Kazoku Nikki from episode 3 onward is everything that people say they hate about fansub karaoke, and yet I consider it a freaking work of art.

[max2k]

Because is fits the OP perfect. And you can say most can be done with creative use of simple Overide Tags, thers only the particel effect in the last vers, wich would requirer LUA. If you not crazy, and try this per normal Automation....

Thers only on littel bug in the OP i think...