Where have all the timers gone?

[Maceart]

While timing is pretty much grunt work, when I time i think, "well, this is crucial to this release, might as well get it done" mentality and I just get it done. Sure 400 line scripts are a pain in the ass, as well as splitting lines that the translator didn't split, but hey, all for the finished product, yeah?

[el]

I also find complaining loudly whilst timing that crappy mecha/ecchi/stupidscreaminggirls(orkids)forthewholeepisode show always gets me through timing it.

[False Dawn]

As I have just found out, timing karaoke is stressful. Not helped by the fact that Aegisub has just thrown up an error message and closed itself down, losing all the kara I've done for the last two hours - not even the backups have any kara in them...

Timing is certainly one of the more frustrating jobs.

[el]

Falsedawn, that's why you save files every few lines or so with an incrementing filenumbering name system <_<

[False Dawn]

Tch, I know that now

Ah well, live and learn I guess. It wouldn't have been so frustrating if I hadn't actually been like a minute away from finishing the kara off... x_x

[ScR3WiEuS]

Originally Posted by TaMz

I'm just wondering this,
cause timing is the easiest one to learn and master (in my opinion),
and when I was actively subbing, there was lots and lots of timers,
but now they seem to have all but vanished.

They ran off, and they took the typesetters with them.

[TheFluff]

Aegisub autosaves every 5 minutes by default. Look in $AEGISUB_DIRECTORY/autosave and find salvation. (Where $AEGISUB_DIRECTORY is wherever you installed Aegisub.)
Also, if it crashes, it tries to save what you were working on to $AEGISUB_DIRECTORY/recovered, but that fails sometimes.
Yet another thing it does to try to save your butt is to save a backup copy of the original script to $AEGISUB_DIRECTORY/autoback - very useful if you accidentally delete something.

It's probably a good idea to check these folders once in a while if you do a lot of script editing. I recently cleaned them out and found that I had about 75 MB in autoback and 70 MB in autosave...

[False Dawn]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

Aegisub autosaves every 5 minutes by default. Look in $AEGISUB_DIRECTORY/autosave and find salvation.
Also, if it crashes, it tries to save what you were working on to $AEGISUB_DIRECTORY/recovered, but that fails sometimes.
Yet another thing it does to try to save your butt is to save a backup copy of the original script to $AEGISUB_DIRECTORY/autoback - very useful if you accidentally delete something.

I know, I tried all that Fluff and the files were all there - just all minus the kara I'd been working on for two hours (I'm not slow, it was just really difficult, honest...)

I'm not quite sure why the autosave function failed me, though I'm very sure that it did and that I'm going to have to redo the whole thing (thankfully it saved the timing, just lost the fiddly kara-timing).

[hytri]

Little OT, I hope you don't mind.
I was wondering, what do you think about Subtitle Workshop? I use it for timing, it takes me about 1h per episode (standard, lenght about 23 minutes and 300 lines give or take a line). Never used aneything else, so I can't really tell is this good or bad.
Can you please whrite your own expiriances with other programs, time it takes you do finish standard episode and did it take too long to get use to the program.

[False Dawn]

Originally Posted by hytri

Little OT, I hope you don't mind.
I was wondering, what do you think about Subtitle Workshop? I use it for timing, it takes me about 1h per episode (standard, lenght about 23 minutes and 300 lines give or take a line). Never used aneything else, so I can't really tell is this good or bad.
Can you please whrite your own expiriances with other programs, time it takes you do finish standard episode and did it take too long to get use to the program.

I use Aegisub which is great for learning on and apparently has a lot of handy features I haven't explored yet. It takes me roughly two hours an episode, but I'm only pretty new to timing so I'd imagine I'd get a bit quicker at it.

If you're timing an ep in an hour, I'd say that's a pretty useful program you have there.

[el]

Subtitle workshop is a little ... to do accurate timing by. AFAIR, it doesn't offer audio options, so you have to hit alt+z, alt+x as you hear it, which can lead to inaccuracies. Any subtitling programme that allows you to look at an audio wave would be better for you to use. I remember around a .30ms offness when I originally timed by Subtitle Workshop (man I was bad then -_-).

Oh, Falsedawn, the more you use the programme, the more you get used to the programme, which shortens the amount of time that it takes for you to time the episode.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by False Dawn

It takes me roughly two hours an episode, but I'm only pretty new to timing so I'd imagine I'd get a bit quicker at it.

You do. Practice is everything. When I was starting out, it took me 2-3 hours per ep, or even more. <shameless boasting> My latest record is 350 lines in less than 40 minutes, but that was with almost no overlapping evilness, and I was intentionally trying to be fast.</shameless boasting> A more usual time is an hour per ep, which is good enough for me as far as audio timing goes - I imagine there are a bunch of people out there that are approaching realtime for it...

[False Dawn]

Does that time include doing sweeps as well? Just for future reference (so I know what I'm aiming at )


EDIT: oh also a little unrelated - I noticed someone advertising for a scene timer earlier... is it just me, or isn't scene-timing part of the whole timing job? Why would any group need a specified scene timer?

[Sylf]

Originally Posted by False Dawn

EDIT: oh also a little unrelated - I noticed someone advertising for a scene timer earlier... is it just me, or isn't scene-timing part of the whole timing job? Why would any group need a specified scene timer?

You'd think so, and for the most case, you're right. But there can be some timer who knows how to do the basic timing using the given software, and knows the concept of scene timing, but can't catch the 1/2-frame scene bleeds. For many of us, we can't realize they are there until we're pointed to them. Afterall, these bleeds happen for less than 1/10 of a second each. You have to have really good set of eyes, or knows when it feels "funny" when there's such bleeds.

Tools such as Sabbu's key frame timing feature and/or Aegisub's timing post processor makes these jobs easier for the scene timer (or let the rough timer help the scene timer a lot), but these tools are not perfect. It's still the scene timer's job to decide which intentional bleed looks good and which bleed should be taken care of more rigorously.

So... if someone wants to split the job of rough timing and scene timing, I guess they have the liberty to....

[False Dawn]

Maybe, though to me it seems like adding an extra person to a group when it would be much easier and less hassle for a timer purely to learn how to sort out bleeds. It would be like having a typesetter that only sets signs but doesn't handle fonts, etc... pointless! (though, I'm sure most typesetters would love someone else to typeset the signs for them )

[Valtier]

I'm an active timer/editor, but I'm not affiliated with any group right now because I've been training myself to do other tasks as well. I've almost got typesetting down (sans karaoke) and I've started to learn the encoding process as well.

Being a timer alone is not that fun. If you're going to fansub, be a timer AND something else. They are not the "fast food employees" of fansubbing - fast food employees do shit for society except make us fat, while timers do shit for fansubbing groups. They're essential, part of the skeleton that can't be taken away. I could come up with a better analogy like farmers in the middle ages or something but that also sounds lame so whatever.

But they are doing the "grunt work." Which is why I would strongly recommend that a bored or unfulfilled timer take up another role to keep themselves active in the fansubbing community. Unless they just wanna quit.

[mangatron]

Originally Posted by Valtier

But they are doing the "grunt work." Which is why I would strongly recommend that a bored or unfulfilled timer take up another role to keep themselves active in the fansubbing community. Unless they just wanna quit.

Which is so true, in a way. Take me for example, translation and translation check. The reason why I'm doing the latter is because after translating, I feel like "What am I gonna do now?"

While I have many, many other things to do, it is difficult to just do one job in the group while the rest of the members are asking who's going to do what lol.

I also have tried timing before, which was a somewhat difficult thing to do. Dealt with alot of numbers lol....in which I might have fully gave up on timing because translating is....much harder lol, dealing with the script and all.

But it's fun, that's why I'm there

[Heibi]

I've always found that timing Galactic Heroes is a pain. Loooooooooonnnnnnngggggg stretches of massive dialog by one person are very hard to time. I get through it easier these days since I've been doing it for a "few" years.
If I ever have a really nasty part wher the lines seem to blend together like a smoothy I start at the end wher a definitive line starts and ends. Then I go backwards.

Heibi
Central Anime

[Ikki-Kun]

=\ I get an error installing Avisynth. Says I dont have administrator rights (And I do since its only my account) And when I open Aegisub, I get a bunch more errors =\

I can take screenshots if needed.

[Sylf]

If you don't have admin rights to that PC, you shouldn't be installing aegisub on it. There's a reason why you don't have admin rights. If you need aegisub, give your account admin rights, or ask your local admin to grant you that access.