Common mistakes made by fansubbers

[Zalis]

Some of these have been covered in whole or in part, but:

• Fonts chosen to "fit the anime" instead of practical, readable ones.

• Colors that blend in with the anime instead of contrasting with the image. (This does not mean "DVD-yellow" has to be used, although I'd gladly take it over a lot of fansubs out there.)

• Insufficient vertical padding -- having to constantly look down at the bottom of the screen is distracting and eye-fatiguing. Viewers wind up missing more than they would if the subs were a bit higher up, and the human eye can interpolate what's supposed to be behind the text anyway.

• Insufficient horizontal padding -- text is best read when it fits into the viewers' foveal vision, which means that 2 short lines are preferable to 1 long line that spans the entire width of the image. Again, viewers miss more by scanning left-to-right all the time than they would by reading 2 short lines in the center of the screen.

• Not substituting or adding "you" when characters use <name> and a 2nd-person pronoun would be more natural in English. Some may see this as a preference or literal/liberal issue. But I see it as confusing, distracting, and just plain wrong from a TL perspective.

• Not translating the easily-translatable. Honorifics/foods/some expressions like "itadakimasu" are acceptable, but things like this and this tread into "Keikaku means plan" territory.

• Doing TL notes for things that Japanese viewers wouldn't know by virtue of being Japanese. This includes "3rd-party" foreign languages (French, Italian, German, etc.), otaku/pop-culture in-jokes, or general historical and scientific knowledge. This is all assuming that the purpose of translation is to recreate the experience of the original audience as closely as possible.

• Joke TL notes, subber comments, Internet memes shoehorned into subs, commercials left in... no wait, those aren't mistakes, those constitute intentional trolling. Which is acceptable/amusing, depending on the series.

• With softsubbed typesetting, not using \clip to cut off subs (especially moving ones) at the video boundaries, e.g. \clip(0,0,640,480) or \clip(0,0,1280,720). If that's not done, you have the potential for subs at the edge of the screen appearing/moving outside the video frame whenever the AR of the viewer's display and the video don't match. (16:9 video on 4:3 display -- subs extend above/below the image; 4:3 video on 16:9 display -- subs extend to the left and right of the image.

Re: LQ releases -- in my attempts at transcoding and downscaling, I've discovered that if one's PC isn't good enough to play <resolution>, it's probably not good enough to re-encode it well in any reasonable amount of time.

Originally Posted by TheFluff

There are over 9000 shitty reencoding groups that release shitty XviD/AVI versions of absolutely everything (saving the fansubbers the effort of doing it) so I really can't see where you're coming from there.

My PC is ancient and runs on a combination of fail and hamster wheel-power. But it's not so ancient that I want or need shitty 400p/XviD/.avi files. I'd rather have 480p-576p h264 .mkv/.mp4 releases from actual groups instead of random re-encoders that tend to skip episodes, make already-bad styling worse, randomly switch sources, or turn the subs into a seizure-inducing, blinking mess. And while re-encoders seem to cover all TV-rips (including ones that already have official SD/XviD versions), I don't see anybody doing re-encoded/downscaled Blu-Ray rips. Which means that for those with low-end machines, many series present a choice of "LQ censored/borked animation SD TV-rips" vs. "HQ but unplayable BD-rips."

But I do respect the reasons that TGEN laid out for why low-res releases are a courtesy, and I do appreciate whatever I get. Even if it is XviD/.avi. If more re-encoders did h264/mkv/softsub and covered BD as well, I wouldn't lament the absence of official low-res releases as much.

RE: Workflow -- I've managed to get a pretty good system down for my solo fansubbing projects, where I only have to watch any given episode 2-3 times.

1) Watch raw for comprehension/enjoyment purposes.
2) Watch raw to translate, noting which lines are signs, overlapping dialogue, or any other styling considerations.
3) Time
4) Go through line-by-line to edit, set styles, and typeset signs (no AFX/hardsubs).
5) Do test mux and watch "finished" episode for QC, noting any remaining errors.
6) Fix errors, remux, release.

It's not terribly fast, especially when I feel like watching/working on something else for days/weeks at a time. But it is efficient, since there's nobody to answer to or argue with.

[Daiz]

Originally Posted by DmonHiro

Oh come one, that too retarded to be true. I refuse to believe that.

It's a completely true "workflow" and I witnessed it first-hand.

Originally Posted by TGEN

Maybe you should consider some people actually like working on this stuff the way they do.

I heard this from one guy of the particular group with the workflow I described. Honestly speaking, the only way I can think someone would "enjoy" this kind of workflow is that they're not interested in subbing & watching & releasing the anime at all and just want to sit around in the staff channel talking about unrelated shit all day long. I was constantly frustrated about nothing getting done subbing-wise or getting done at a painfully slow and lazy pace while the rest of the staff just went about seemingly not caring and talking about the aforementioned completely unrelated shit. So in their case this seemed to be the exact case.

If you have some other suggestions as to why someone would enjoy the combination of excessive bureaucracy & no timeframes, do tell.

[False Dawn]

Originally Posted by Zalis

• Doing TL notes for things that Japanese viewers wouldn't know by virtue of being Japanese. This includes "3rd-party" foreign languages (French, Italian, German, etc.), otaku/pop-culture in-jokes, or general historical and scientific knowledge. This is all assuming that the purpose of translation is to recreate the experience of the original audience as closely as possible.

This is actually a difficult one (especially the bit I've highlighted) because you have to judge how much the average Japanese viewer (and specifically, a Japanese viewer who would be most likely to understand these references) would understand and then attempt to recreate that experience. Something that might be culturally important to someone in Japan might be very difficult to translate into English and unfortunately, this is often hard to do without TL notes.

When I edited Kurozuka, though, there was a whole swathe of historical information that was useful to put the series into context because it was based on a famous General who would have been more well-known in Japan than anywhere else in the world. However, it wasn't necessary to fill the release with a pile of TL notes, so instead I created a separate pdf and plonked that on the website in the release newspost. It seemed to work quite well - so maybe that's a way of correcting this "mistake" though I can imagine a lot of groups won't go out of their way to do it because it does create extra work.

[Daiz]

Originally Posted by False Dawn

This is actually a difficult one (especially the bit I've highlighted) because you have to judge how much the average Japanese viewer (and specifically, a Japanese viewer who would be most likely to understand these references) would understand and then attempt to recreate that experience.

When it comes to otaku/pop culture references though, there should never be reference notes. Ever. The point of a reference like this is that you either get it and feel clever for knowing what the thing references or it passes below your radar and you carry on not knowing you missed anything. However, if there's a reference note, any sense of discovery is gone because there's a note on the screen saying "THIS REFERENCES X AND Y FROM Z", and if you don't know the reference you suddenly won't find the reference funny just because you were explicitly told what it references, and spoils the fun of getting the reference during a later watch.

In short, otaku/pop culture reference notes are never necessary, as they only spoil the fun of references to begin with.

[TGEN]

Originally Posted by Daiz

If you have some other suggestions as to why someone would enjoy the combination of excessive bureaucracy & no timeframes, do tell.

If you take away the pressure of having to release fast, or just quicker than the competition, a lot of the reasons to get annoyed by inefficiency go away. What remains though, and I hope this goes for everyone who works on fansubs, is the enjoyment you get out of fansubbing. Is it so hard to see other people can enjoy it without being speedsubbers, even if you yourself don't?

[Mandoric]

Originally Posted by TGEN

If you take away the pressure of having to release fast, or just quicker than the competition, a lot of the reasons to get annoyed by inefficiency go away. What remains though, and I hope this goes for everyone who works on fansubs, is the enjoyment you get out of fansubbing. Is it so hard to see other people can enjoy it without being speedsubbers, even if you yourself don't?

The fact that we're discussing "mistakes groups make", going out and criticizing to begin with, implies that the criteria is being good rather than having fun.
Recently I've picked up the violin, and while I enjoy practicing it would certainly be a mistake to go downtown and squeak and squeal my way through an attempt at busking. The principle holds true here as well.

[Daiz]

Originally Posted by TGEN

If you take away the pressure of having to release fast, or just quicker than the competition, a lot of the reasons to get annoyed by inefficiency go away. What remains though, and I hope this goes for everyone who works on fansubs, is the enjoyment you get out of fansubbing. Is it so hard to see other people can enjoy it without being speedsubbers, even if you yourself don't?

I wouldn't consider myself a speedsubber. I generally aim to release an episode in 24-48 hours after it has aired, and seeing as it takes about 2 man-hours and 4-6 general work hours (downloading .ts, encoding, uploading for distro) for me to do a single episode, 24-48 hours is rather lenient timeframe.

Now if I were to work with a group who does everything including translating, I'd set the goal for release at 48-72 hours after airing, and with manhours & general work hours combined at about 12 hours, that's also very lenient timeframe provided that people are simply available and willing to work on it. You don't exactly have to hurry with this kind of time goals, and this sort of speed should be fast enough for anyone except the most impatient people.

Also, at least to me, pretty much the biggest satisfaction of fansubbing comes from watching the finished release and releasing it out to the public. It's also the best motivator to keep working on the show. If that only happened like once a month, it'd sure as hell kill my motivation to do anything quite effectively and take a lot of the fun of fansubbing away. Even if there's no "pressure to release" as you call it, horrible inefficiency still annoys me because it leads to no results. We didn't have any sort of release timeframes in the group I described, but we all agreed that we should aim to release at "decent speed". Their "decent" was just apparently counted in weeks, while mine was in days.

Really, I don't exactly enjoy timing or typesetting (especially if it's doing repetitive signs over and over again) or even encoding that much, I enjoy the results of them. Now if you genuinely enjoy doing something like timing, then sure, enjoy that (though I'd call you at least somewhat weird if you seriously like timing), but I'd say normal people would enjoy getting something done more than the actual work part of it.

[TGEN]

Originally Posted by Daiz

Now if I were to work with a group who does everything including translating, I'd set the goal for release at 48-72 hours after airing, and with manhours & general work hours combined at about 12 hours, that's also very lenient timeframe provided that people are simply available and willing to work on it. You don't exactly have to hurry with this kind of time goals, and this sort of speed should be fast enough for anyone except the most impatient people.

Well, if you're just a ripper, things are different for you. The more work you have to do on an episode (even if it's just to meet whatever quality standards you have), the longer it takes.

Also, at least to me, pretty much the biggest satisfaction of fansubbing comes from watching the finished release and releasing it out to the public. It's also the best motivator to keep working on the show. If that only happened like once a month, it'd sure as hell kill my motivation to do anything quite effectively and take a lot of the fun of fansubbing away.

Yes, your motivation, but perhaps not that of others?

Even if there's no "pressure to release" as you call it, horrible inefficiency still annoys me because it leads to no results. We didn't have any sort of release timeframes in the group I described, but we all agreed that we should aim to release at "decent speed". Their "decent" was just apparently counted in weeks, while mine was in days.

I agree with you when it leads to no results at all; but I personally don't mind having to wait a week or two (I assume that was the 'decent speed' they had in mind), when it's regular. Irregular release schedules can be annoying, but not so much so that it angers me.

Really, I don't exactly enjoy timing or typesetting (especially if it's doing repetitive signs over and over again) or even encoding that much, I enjoy the results of them. Now if you genuinely enjoy doing something like timing, then sure, enjoy that (though I'd call you at least somewhat weird if you seriously like timing), but I'd say normal people would enjoy getting something done more than the actual work part of it.

I don't think enjoying the process, besides just the result, is as uncommon as you believe it to be. To go off on a tangent and misinterpret what you just said, I don't enjoy my death, but instead my life leading up to it :P. Or, it is not the destination that matters, but the trip. I'm sure you're familiar with similar sayings .

[Mandoric]

Originally Posted by TGEN

I don't think enjoying the process, besides just the result, is as uncommon as you believe it to be. To go off on a tangent and misinterpret what you just said, I don't enjoy my death, but instead my life leading up to it :P. Or, it is not the destination that matters, but the trip. I'm sure you're familiar with similar sayings .

If the point is your own enjoyment and going through the process, then why even necessarily release?
If someone loves translating but only knows Spanish and English, and ends up at the end of a J-C-E-S-E game of telephone, is this to be considered perfectly fine because they're having fun? A colourblind typesetter, perhaps?

[Heibi]

Shouldn't these last group of posts be in the fansub help thread? Or perhaps a new Fansubbers' Philosophy thread?

[TGEN]

Originally Posted by Mandoric

If the point is your own enjoyment and going through the process, then why even necessarily release?
If someone loves translating but only knows Spanish and English, and ends up at the end of a J-C-E-S-E game of telephone, is this to be considered perfectly fine because they're having fun? A colourblind typesetter, perhaps?

You can still derive joy from releasing, even if you're not the first, fastest, or whatever. As for a colourblind typesetter, that'd be just excellent.

Originally Posted by Heibi

Shouldn't these last group of posts be in the fansub help thread? Or perhaps a new Fansubbers' Philosophy thread?

Maybe the last one, but some people have mentioned here that a different fansub philosophy (nice way of putting it) is a common mistake. The discussion is just a little dragged out, but that's not a bad thing .

[Schneizel]

The faster you get done, the more time you have to do other things.

In our spare time, we simulwatch [stuff] and play online Monopoly. grunty has been trying to organize a viewing of the Antique movie for a while as well.

[Daiz]

Originally Posted by TGEN

Well, if you're just a ripper, things are different for you. The more work you have to do on an episode (even if it's just to meet whatever quality standards you have), the longer it takes.

True, but in the specific part you quoted, I was talking about the full thing, in other words doing everything from translation to releasing in-group. 12 manhours is plenty for that, unless you're doing a billion edit/QC/whatever passes which hardly increases quality and generally speaking just slows the release down.

I have lead an actual fansub group as well and we had the 48-72 hour aim. Despite people not being online or going missing (like one week the translator was missing, so we had to find someone from outside the group), we generally managed to keep the timeframe and have good quality results. Sadly the group had to disband after 8 episodes due to translator disappearing permanently and we couldn't find another one to fill the void.

All in all, as I said, releasing in 48-72 hours after airing is a very lenient timeframe for a full fansubbing job.

Also, you certainly talk a lot about "enjoying the process of fansubbing aside from releasing", but you still haven't specified WHAT exactly you enjoy in that. Just saying that you "enjoy it" is pretty much a blanket statement with no value in it. I'm interested to know, so it'd be pretty nice if you could be specific.

[KiryuuKazumanosuke]

By my own estimation based on errors reported to me through CR or that I've discovered myself, shows which I work on completely alone on have an error rate of around 0.05% per line.

And when you pull the other one, it plays music!

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by KiryuuKazumanosuke

And when you pull the other one, it plays music!

I know 0.05% per line sounds impressive, but that works out to a mistake every 6 episodes or so if you do the math.

[v1cious]

Leaving in honorofics, and skimping on translating words (Nakama). I fucking hate that. I understand the need to be true to the original source material, but if you're watching a show that takes place in England, and someone says something like "karen-chan", it completely takes you out of the setting, and it's annoying. I also with people adding in profanity. I highly doubt Naruto characters are throwing around F word in prime kids hour (although Gintama did it, but it was in english)

[Free]

Run-on sentences, sentences that are too long for the time allotted: chop some off, restructure, break into multiple;
sentences starting with "It's": rephrase;
sentences that follow the Japanese structure, often broken up into 2+ lines due to scene change, dialog pause, etc: combine, restructure, rephrase;
names that could be replaced with pronouns;

sentences that are broken up at every pause, thus generating too many lines: concatenate;

sub too close to the bottom: try 60 pad on 720p;
moving signs are harder to read than still signs in styles that don't blend into the background too much;

subbing for the sake of subbing.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by TGEN

If you take away the pressure of having to release fast, or just quicker than the competition, a lot of the reasons to get annoyed by inefficiency go away. What remains though, and I hope this goes for everyone who works on fansubs, is the enjoyment you get out of fansubbing. Is it so hard to see other people can enjoy it without being speedsubbers, even if you yourself don't?

I am sorry but fansubbing itself isn't enjoying in any way whatsoever; it's mostly tedious and repetitive. It's hanging out with chill people that's interesting; hence you want to spend as little time as possible on actually fansubbing stuff.

[False Dawn]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

I am sorry but fansubbing itself isn't enjoying in any way whatsoever; it's mostly tedious and repetitive. It's hanging out with chill people that's interesting; hence you want to spend as little time as possible on actually fansubbing stuff.

I enjoy editing. That's why I keep coming back every time I go away. I could quite easily chill with the people I like on IRC without doing anything (I pretty much do that already in some groups).

[Heibi]

Originally Posted by Free

sentences starting with "It's": rephrase;

It's time to go.
It's yours!
It's time to die.
It's a beautiful day.
It's wonderful.
It's about time you got here.
It's full of stars.
It's coming right at us!

It's a very natural way of speaking and not grammatically incorrect. Please leave pet peeves out of mistakes. This thread has already gotten way off track for what was meant.