Oldest Online Fansub Group?
 

Hey guys, I am doing a research project in which I am exploring the effects of digitality upon animation and access to anime, so I need to know, does any1 know which fansubbers are the oldest ones online? I am quite interested in doing an interview via email with some of these guys!

Thanks in advance
Rowan aka Zolmaster

I'm not sure myself but I beleive it to be Anime-Fansubs.

Hmm...

I dunno which one is the oldest exactly, but there's a fellow who posts on here by the nick of Access who has been digisubbing pretty much since the start in a variety of fansub groups. I suggest you seek him out for your interview.

-Tofu

I suppose we should define what constitutes digisubbing or not.

I mean I've seen downloadable MPEGs for the last 6 years or so from groups like Sachi's Distribution (mamoto shugoggetan et al) and some of our old stuff <Risky Safety prior to it's licensing, Initial D, Macross 7, Touch etc.(Central Anime).

So are you asking about pure digisubs<digitial capture, digital subtitle, computer file>, encodes from tapes or the start of the whole "scene" as it exists today.

The oldest is probably animefactory, I believe.

Not sure about digisubbers, but Central Anime and the Technogirls have both been around since long before digisubbing became the thing to do.

Wasn't Anime-Fansubs' Love Hina the thing that started it all?

While anime-fansubs was indeed "one of the originals", there was at least anime factory before us.

The .nfos from HQA state they started in 99, so they're pretty old, too.

CU,
lamer_de

Depends EXACTLY on what you are looking for. Some of the oldest "online" were ppl that sold VHS fansubs online, then there were VHS Fansub cappers, then there were old UNNAMED groups that did lots of subs with JUST the ep subs, not credits, no nothing, THEN groups with names came out.....I don't think you will find the FIRST digisubbers tho cuz they were probablly unnamed...

thanx guys, im specifically looking for guys who do digi-subs, since technically the old VHS fansubs are considered analogue format (even if they did use pcs to do it, you still had to get it on VHS) so yeah, any guys who do DIGI-subs :p

Earliest forms of digital anime that were not just simple captures of an analog source that I'm aware of were actually realmedia files with realtext subtitles.

Earliest such a project that I know of is Legend of the Galactic Heroes project, but they used existing scripts from VHS fansubs groups. I actually managed to find the date for their first release: 04-27-1999.

The first project that I'm sure did their own translations is LunaArts anime's Adventures of Mini-Goddess. That project began in mid-to-late 1999 and they actually did translations for multiple languages. One episode at least had subtitles in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portugese, Spanish and Swedish. The number of languages diminished later on though.

There were actually quite a lot of similar projects, often done by a single individual I think. I'm aware of (and have/had files of) at least Bubblegum Crisis 2040, Candidate for Goddess, Cowboy Bebop, Hana yori Dango, Love Hina and Trigun. For most of them I'm not sure where the translations originated or when exacly they were done (I'd guess most were done during 1999 and early 2000). Some also used SMI/SAMI subtitles and ASF (and later DivX/nAVI/SMR in AVI). Digi Charat was done like this at least.

The earliest divx avi file with hard subtitles that I know of was done by animefactory (like some people already mentioned). The first thing that I got from them was Vision of Escaflowne the Movie, but I think Love Hina at least was done before that. This was I think mid 2000. The number of groups/individuals doing divx fansubs rose quite quickly afer that, but unfortunately I don't really remember most of their names.

Wasn't ADV a fansub group before they turned into a company? How long ago was that?

Oh boy... the oldest fansub group I can remember is probably either Anime-Fansubs or Sachi. I bought several videos from Sachi, but I don't think they ever got into digisubbing. AnimeOne is also a pretty old group; I remember them doing Infinite Ryvius.

I hated watching the realmedia digisubs, though. The way softsubs were handled then were so... ugh. I still have scripts printed out from those days so I could avoid turning on the softsubs.

No, ADV was a regular company, they did Si-Fi Shows before they EVER did anime. You are probably thinking of CPM (Central Park Media) who's founder used to be a fansubber back in the day.

Aside from the ones people have mentioned, E-F keeps popping into my head as an oldie group. o.o Of course, I haven't been following digisubs for that long, so...

Let's not forget US RENDITIONS, a small anime company that released a couple of interesting tapes that are almost impossible to find now, like the complete Gunbuster between others.

We could just discuss what the effect is anyway

Old way .. only way to get anime was to know somebody who knew somebody who could get tapes .. or send tapes to somebody and hope to god they got around to making copies for you.

So the problem was distribution .. and with the difficulty in distribution came a like limit on the number of people who would be interested in anime.

With the internet, and more recently bittorrent, the distribution is effectively free for the supplier and free to the consumer(of anime).

More available product and no cost = explosive growth as we've seen.

You will notice of course that with a number of exceptions, the breadth and diversity of releases and shows has become great, but the depth of those releases drops off dramatically a few shows in because of the way people are (fansub groups that form ad-hoc and dissolve as the members ebb and flow).

Satsuke

I don't remember who is first to release online, but I doubt that any of those original groups still exist. The original digisubs were these tiny little rm files with awful quality. I think that Inuyasha or Kadocha were probably among the first digisubs. It was only a few years ago with the development of "DivX ;)" that video quality became an issue.

Is there anyone here who actually released rm fansubs?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Technogirls only release on VHS and even have little disclaimers on their tapes now asking people not to covert them into digital copies because they want to stay on VHS only. Since this is a project about the impact of digitality I don't think that they are relevant.

I'd forgotten that little warning, you're correct about that. I would think that finding out why they actively refuse to go digital might be more relevant to the project than most of the info you'd get from modern digi-subbers, but I'm not the one doing the report, so I don't know what he's looking for.

It is true that Central has been around since before the digital times, and is currently releasing some of their old stuff in DivX format. That would be another unique perspective, the group that has used both models and could help compare.

Nope. ADV is indeed a case of fans going pro. Their very first catalogue release was Devil Hunter Yohko, a single episode, sub-only VHS release that a friend of mine proudly features as a part of his collection, no matter how often I tell him how dumb that show was. And then he went and bought the anniversary DVD they released last year. I'm tellin' ya, there's no helpin' some people. :D