What aspects of fansubbing do you think you can judge?

[LytHka]

I'm asking you guys what you think you can judge, quality wise, when it comes to aspects of fansubbing. It matters what you think you can judge, even if you can't proclaim that with 100% certainty.
I hope this is the right place to post this poll. It is dedicated to leechers, NOT fansubbers, so I put it here instead of Fansub Groups (which is more the fansubbers' turf) or Fansubs (it's more of a series' discussion forum).



Some hints to make you discover, if you can judge fansubs' quality:

Translation: In order to mark this aspect in the poll, you basically need to have enough knowledge of the Japanese language to be able to know what was translated right and what was translated wrong. If you think your Japanese is good enough for you to spot errors, which are, at the same time, not just random editing preferences, then this aspect is what you can judge.

Timing: In order to judge this aspect, you basically need to sense whether you can or cannot relax while reading the subtitles. This is often influenced by their frequency of appearance, and length of their appearance (for ex. ask yourself "How many times do I need to rewind to read them fully?").

Editing: Basics of judging editing consist of spotting spelling errors, how the "flow" of the dialogue "works", how it fits the characters speaking the dialogue, consistency with terminology and names etc.

Typesetting and styling: "Does this look good to me (font choices, colour choices, readability, sign movements) and could this be done better?" should always be on your mind if you can judge this aspect.

Karaoke: Again, "Does this look good to me (font choices, colour choices, readability, special effects) and could this be done better?", and possibly "Does it fit the song?"

Encoding and video quality: Once more, "Does this look good to me?"



What I don't want in this thread is senseless arguing over fansubbing preferences (literal vs. localized translation, usage of finetiming/lead-in/out intervals, literal vs. localized editing, effects vs. plain subs, karaoke vs. no karaoke etc.). I'll report those types of posts immediately to moderators.

I'll post my hypotheses for the results sometime later. Thank you for your cooperation!

[monir]

Editing is the only aspect of fansubbing that I'm really interested in and based on editing is how I categorize a "quality" fansub. The editor must have a very good handle of English and knows enough Japanese to communicate with those alien species of fluent Japanese speakers. I could careless if a group is at a n00b level at encoding or doesn't have l33t karaoke effects. I skip the OP and ED anyway for most shows after the first episode. Timing is important I suppose as long as a group doesn't exceed 2 lines in a frame. Typesetting and styling effects are redundant accessories of digisubbing as the technology is getting better and that shouldn't be a deciding factor of what a quality group is by observing how good they are at it, but that's merely my opinion. I personally prefer readable white/yellow arial font but I equally enjoy the special effects by the fansubber if they aren't compromising the editing, the most important aspect of fansubbing. Can't comment on translation for the obvious reason. That's about it.

So, how do grade? Just so I'm not judged too harshly, I'm a good leecher.

[NoSanninWa]

I hope I shouldn't be disqualified from responding here on the basis that I am a fansubber? We are allowed into General Anime, y'know. I didn't see a big sign saying "Leechers only, Fansubbers need not apply." It is a little interesting that while I was the 18th person to respond to this thread, I am only the third post.

Well, I know that I can judge editing. I've edited enough fansubs that I am quite sure of it. Of course, pretty much all of the people responding think that they can judge editing. I've seen the way that they post and I can assure you that they are wrong. There are 500 ways that any sentence can be phrased in English and just knowing how to speak the language does not mean you can choose the right set of words to fit a character's personality. Most people only know how to speak as themselves and they have trouble putting that into print. Well, maybe they can judge bad editing, even if they couldn't do it themselves.

I've got just enough knowlege of Japanese that I can pick out lines to ask my translator if he's sure he captured the sense of it properly. (Or botched it entirely.) And be right most of the time. But I sure couldn't figure out how it really should be phrased even though I can spot trouble spots. I'd say that is not good enough to really judge translation quality, just because I can spot some of the really bad translation.

As for Timing, Typesetting and Encoding: I'm slowly aquiring the basics of how to judge these through osmosis. By conversing with the people who do these, I am discovering what they consider important and what they consider to be problems. At this point I am pretty decent at judging typesetting- which is trickier than it might seem to balance between making it pretty, suiting the character and never losing track of readability. And lets not forget signage! But I only have small skill at judging timing and encoding, although my knowlege of those are growing.

That leaves karaoke. Unfortunately I don't care about karaoke, so I'll never be good at it.

[ImperialPanda]

I'll check translation and editing. Finished 2 semesters of JP and sophmore composition. I can spot possible errors, but that's not to say I could do a better job.

[Zero Shinohara]

I had Karaoke off because that's not much of a big concern to me. I'd rather have the episode well translated than have them lose quality on that because they spend hours trying to figure out a lot of things they can't understand from that. Timing, if you mean as in "the subtitle" timing, I'd say that yeah, that is something you can judge, simply because it depends on how much effort the fansubber puts on it. As in timing related to how long it takes for them to release, nope. The rest are always interchanged, so I'd guess they all can be pretty much put in the same category to me. Still, I think that every fansub group is worthy of respect (Not Dattebayo, though. :P j/k), since they're doing something for the public. The quality and speed of their subs is just something each person decides.

One thing that freaks me out is people trying to fansub off the manga. While it might be a good source... please, if you don't have a person who can translate japanese, don't try to include things you're not 100% sure. I made the mistake of grabbing some of these for a few Bleach episodes, and though they weren't that far from what was said, I'm still a pretty bitchy perfectionist.


Jezus, I digrass.

[LytHka]

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

I hope I shouldn't be disqualified from responding here on the basis that I am a fansubber? We are allowed into General Anime, y'know. I didn't see a big sign saying "Leechers only, Fansubbers need not apply." It is a little interesting that while I was the 18th person to respond to this thread, I am only the third post.

It is by all means meant as a "research post" for the leecher population, thus I'll try to exclude the points with which I think you awarded the poll with.

[Orichi]

Encoding and video quality: Once more, "Does this look good to me?"

Timing: This is often influenced by their frequency of appearance, and length of their appearance.

I think pretty much most people can judge video quality and timing.
It doesn't require any special knowledge or understanding of languages.
However, I could also judge some of the translation, just not too much.
Also, what are you looking at with editing anyways..?

[Xellos-_^]

I always catch any grammer and spelling mistakes, so editing.