Anime without homes.

[Cyrogen]

It's always sad to start downloading a series, and through lack of group interest, not have it get completed.

I understand that fansubbers have lives, translations are not a paid job for anyone, and every step of the process rely's on people having time & motivation.

Though my time & motivation is also low I feel that I would like to lend my hand to the process on occasion (I can't translate though).

Bringing me to the main point - Is there, or has there ever been an anime fansubbing system similar to what Manga Helpers http://mangahelpers.com/ does with manga? As soon as a RAW is found, a topic goes up with it, a random translator visiting the site grabs the RAW, translates it & posts their translation, a random editor gets the RAW and translation from the site & finishes the product & posts it for all to download.

These people are not a group, but they do achieve a suitable end project. Sometimes not as nice looking as a groups project, but better than it never getting done.

I have never tried subbing anime, but I believe I could do every step except translating it. If there isn't any systems out there like this, maybe my posting here will get some people thinking about it, tossing their own idea's around in their heads. Ideally if someone did try to start one like this they would use a good team of forum moderators like Manga Helpers do, just to keep order, and to find out which projects have been dropped before completion (I wouldn't like to see them treading on any groups toes).

I have more thoughts on this, but there's a start - comments welcome.

[StarCreator]

I personally think it's a better idea for people who want to help out to approach the groups that may have stalled and offer assistance, if they are able to provide it.

[[darkfire]]

I don't know that this would work with fansubbing considering the size of the files passed around. Who would do the hosting. The raw has to be the same for everyone. I know daddicts has a similar system. It could possibly work for anime, but I don't think its likely at least not here.

[checkers]

new dreamhost accounts give you ~200gb of space or something ridiculous. All you need is one person with a DH account to donate 50gb of space and 150gb of quota and your hosting is setup

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by checkers

new dreamhost accounts give you ~200gb of space or something ridiculous. All you need is one person with a DH account to donate 50gb of space and 150gb of quota and your hosting is setup

The problem isn't the hard drive space, it's that there's a contradiction:

1. Anyone should be able to access the raw to work on the show.

2. Therefore, it'd just end up being used by people to grab raws from (and they wouldn't translate jack).

People generally don't download raw manga scans b/c they're pretty useless without the translation. But there are LOTS of people who download raws of shows that aren't subbed. If you have public access to them, then that's that. If you restrict the access then it's no different than a (loosely based) fansub group.

[Access]

Actually today you have BT, you could just point to a raw on BT or put it on BT yourself. Then you don't really have to care if it ends up getting leeched. Why did groups restrict access in the past? B'cos they felt their raw was 'better' and wanted to keep it that way to have an advantage over any competition? In theory you could also do the same for partially finished / intermediate jobs, I mean if people actually want to leech an unfinished sub, more the power to them.

[complich8]

I think a lot of groups sort of take the view that if a raw is going to be useful to you, you probably already have the prerequisite skills to find it.

Also, why should the group subbing a show go out of its way to pass out the raws they got (usually fairly easily) from somewhere else? If group X identifies itself as a distributor of English-subbed fansubs, distributing raws as well will somewhat contradict that image. They'll become mere distributors of other people's work (particularly the rawcappers' work), and lose a certain degree of credibility as anything else.

Even worse, the ever-present "where's the next episode? when's the next ep coming out" crowd would only be egged on knowing that the group already has the raw. After all, group Y can get a 24-hour turnaround, why isn't group X keeping up? They've got the file, they're practically done! Where's our file dammit??

... or so goes the imagined cacophony.

[Access]

Well it would never happen at the group level b'cos a group that exists already has those resources. I was just responding to the different points above; that in order to sub, raws and other files need to be shared. If people actually did this sort of thing, it would just be a way to sub stuff without the overhead of being in a group or needing the group resources (shared dump, etc.) I suppose it would end up more like the open-source movement. But naturally groups are so easy to form these days that it seems doubtful this sort of thing would catch on. People seem to enjoy or want the exclusivity / privilage / prestige / bennies / power, real or imagined, that comes from being in a group.

[Cyrogen]

Originally Posted by StarCreator

I personally think it's a better idea for people who want to help out to approach the groups that may have stalled and offer assistance, if they are able to provide it.

Clicking on the Anime DB calendar, the amount of anime titles that don't get a fansub groups attention every month is pretty big.

Stalled groups may also have no intention what-so-ever of picking the title back up for one reason or another. Illumitoon Entertainment and Westlake Entertainment hasn't exactly stated that they've licensed the 2nd series of Beet, but the amount of eps they've said their releasing is more than 2 series worth (only 1 more I recall though), and Anime-Keep is on hold with their subs. This would take a year or 2 for Illumitoon Entertainment and Westlake Entertainment to release "new content" for some of us. I'm not in the US, it will be longer.

F-Zero Falcon Densetsu, 2 episodes of this were subbed way back in.... 2004 maybe? I don't think there was that much interest in it, but having played a few of the F-Zero games I was one of those that were enjoying it so far. 4Kids Licensed it some time later, put it on Fox, and axed it at like ep 18 of 51? We might not ever see a complete box set released in US or where I am.

Not every series is dropped because of licensing issues, they are just the ones that sprang to mind that I had interest in.

Originally Posted by [darkfire]

I don't know that this would work with fansubbing considering the size of the files passed around. Who would do the hosting. The raw has to be the same for everyone. I know daddicts has a similar system. It could possibly work for anime, but I don't think its likely at least not here.

People finding RAWS could point us at their original source, or organise to pass the file to a potential subber through IRC or something.

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

2. Therefore, it'd just end up being used by people to grab raws from (and they wouldn't translate jack).

People generally don't download raw manga scans b/c they're pretty useless without the translation. But there are LOTS of people who download raws of shows that aren't subbed.

My example in the first topic was Manga Helpers, people DO download RAW manga just to look at, people DO translate it for us AND post their translations for us to use in scanlations.

Originally Posted by complich8

Even worse, the ever-present "where's the next episode? when's the next ep coming out" crowd would only be egged on knowing that the group already has the raw. After all, group Y can get a 24-hour turnaround, why isn't group X keeping up? They've got the file, they're practically done! Where's our file dammit??

... or so goes the imagined cacophony.

I know the "when's the next ep" question annoys alot of people, it may not be a problem for a system such as this which isn't exactly a group.... however if it was presented I can see the standard answer being something like "Do it you F***ing self" This is a system where anyone could step in and do a step afterall.

[Wacram Glaziuz]

Interesting thing to think of, im pretty new in theese forums. i love anime shows, ... simply put, i would do almost anything to se a serie that i love get better ^^

plese give me some intel in how this would be set up and some history on how others have done it, i might provide with a step or two ^^

[Koroku]

You'd have to have some sort of resource to make sure it doesn't turn into a "So-and-so is taking over 24 hours to do episode ### of Naruto. PLZ SUB IT 4 ME." site.


I'd be willing to throw in some support if people could come up with a real plan for how this'd work.