Crunchyroll Has Nearly 200,000+ Paid Subscribers

[Fahd]

Originally Posted by bayoab

It's 1.26mil with 15k @ $7/mo assuming that they pay all year round.
Let's assume they are paying 70/30. That leaves 378k/yr before overhead. That's maybe enough to cover maybe 10 staff and a full set of servers and leaves you nothing to spare.

What struck me the most was their upload usage needs: 1.5 million video hours/month multiplied by ~160MB's/hour (for the H.264 streams) comes out to 240 TB/month . I assume they're paying a fixed rate, and not per GB of traffic; right?

[SinsI]

Originally Posted by Fahd

What struck me the most was their upload usage needs: 1.5 million video hours/month multiplied by ~160MB's/hour (for the H.264 streams) comes out to 240 TB/month . I assume they're paying a fixed rate, and not per GB of traffic; right?

Well, 1TB of traffic a month is less than 50$, so that's ~12000$/month for traffic.
With 15000 subscribers x 6$ each they are getting at least 7 times more money than they are spending.

[alamarco]

Cruncnyroll is a god send in terms of anime content. You can get episodes legally right after they air in Japan.

The one thing that scares me is the first post almost made it seem like online content would mean they would stop producing English DVDs. I hope that is never the case because I love collecting and buying the DVDs. I'm sure many other people do as well.

[Alto-hime]

Originally Posted by jsieczkar

However I still tend towards unimpressed on their translations.
Erenfried's name isn't Elenfriet.He has to go through enough without you all screwing up his name. Also the translations tend to sound like dub scripts. Plus there are typos. (In the episode I just watched there was a "The" which should have been "Them".)

Interesting debate. Love the paranoia.

Other than the occasional typo, the translations I have seen have been superior to most fansubs. They had honorifics, Japanese name order, and were very well written. The only really questionable one I saw was Naruto which is the one everyone watches lol

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Alto-hime

Interesting debate. Love the paranoia.

Other than the occasional typo, the translations I have seen have been superior to most fansubs. They had honorifics, Japanese name order, and were very well written. The only really questionable one I saw was Naruto which is the one everyone watches lol

And guess which one is still translated by Viz?

[SinsI]

Originally Posted by Alto-hime

Other than the occasional typo, the translations I have seen have been superior to most fansubs. They had honorifics, Japanese name order, and were very well written. The only really questionable one I saw was Naruto which is the one everyone watches lol

The ones I've seen were generaly from bad to average, and first episode of Saki was pretty horrible.

Japanese name order is a must, but if you're making subs for non-deaf people you rarely need honorifics - since they take up screen space it is better without them.

The worst thing about Crunchyroll subs is that they don't bother with reading the original material if the show is based on some other work - manga or novel - and go on with their own interpretation - and sometimes you NEED that knowledge to give proper translation.

[Zippicus]

Originally Posted by Alto-hime

Interesting debate. Love the paranoia.

Other than the occasional typo, the translations I have seen have been superior to most fansubs. They had honorifics, Japanese name order, and were very well written. The only really questionable one I saw was Naruto which is the one everyone watches lol

Stop watching speed subs That's about the only thing that CR beats in terms of translation quality.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by alamarco

Cruncnyroll is a god send in terms of anime content. You can get episodes legally right after they air in Japan.

The one thing that scares me is the first post almost made it seem like online content would mean they would stop producing English DVDs. I hope that is never the case because I love collecting and buying the DVDs. I'm sure many other people do as well.

Apologize if it sounded like I was ragging on CR.... they are moving towards the sort of thing I'd like to see in anime previews (the equivalent of what japanese viewers get to see prior to DVD sales). But like Alamarco - I like eventually owning physical media (DVDs) and don't want to see digital streaming REPLACE either purchasing of digital video packages or DVDs.

I think I'd almost rather have digital video disks so that they can move up and away from the "DVD standard subtitle" crap and into the nicer stuff that we see on fansubs.

[germanturkey]

hmm, congrats. you got enough subscribers to match the downloads of one popular show a week...

[Ichihara Asako]

I really hope it's not "the future" because streaming sucks. I'd consider a monthly fee service to download all the HQ (broadcast rip quality we currently see in fansubs, preferably HD) and softsubbed anime I want in DRM free containers (MKV or MP4 is fine) but until such a service exists... nope.

[Alto-hime]

Originally Posted by SinsI

The ones I've seen were generaly from bad to average, and first episode of Saki was pretty horrible.

Japanese name order is a must, but if you're making subs for non-deaf people you rarely need honorifics - since they take up screen space it is better without them.

The worst thing about Crunchyroll subs is that they don't bother with reading the original material if the show is based on some other work - manga or novel - and go on with their own interpretation - and sometimes you NEED that knowledge to give proper translation.

I beg to differ. I am a fairly avid manga reader and so far shows such as Eyeshield 21, Naruto, Reborn, Gintama, Shugo Chara, Skip Beat, Hayate no Gotoku, La Corda, and I can't remember what else I watched all seemed to have their translations come practically verbatim from the official English language manga translations. I think I just listed like half the shows on there lol

Can you name some specific examples because I'm really amazed people find them poor.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Vexx

But like Alamarco - I like eventually owning physical media (DVDs) and don't want to see digital streaming REPLACE either purchasing of digital video packages or DVDs.

This is something people need to realize themselves, that they aren't paying for anime titles, they're paying for a video service, just like you would by subscribing to HBO or something.

[SinsI]

Originally Posted by Alto-hime

Can you name some specific examples because I'm really amazed people find them poor.

You named one yourself - Skip Beat!
I saw numerous jokes that were in the manga, were in the anime but weren't in their translation.
And at first they used some horribly made nickname instead of Moko.

[Alto-hime]

I have never seen an anime adaption that used every single line from the manga. If you do not speak Japanese to a level of fluency to be able to translate yourself, please refrain from assuming it was wrong.

Also I asked for specific examples.

[SinsI]

Originally Posted by Alto-hime

I have never seen an anime adaption that used every single line from the manga. If you do not speak Japanese to a level of fluency to be able to translate yourself, please refrain from assuming it was wrong.

Also I asked for specific examples.

Thanks for the advice, but I understand enough Japanese to see the difference between a good and a bad sub. As for specific examples - I don't wanna waste time looking for them, anime is not exactly the easiest thing too search through. You notice those things as you watch, but it is a lot harder to consciously stumble upon them.
As far as translation goes those parts are not exactly incorrect, but they are only "good enough": since the translator is doing this for money and not because he really loves this show he doesn't go to great lengths to find the best way to translate a joke or to rephrase it so that it provides the most impact. That's why there are some really great fansubs and scanlations out there - but the best of the best official subs are only good.
Fansubbers can also take their time translating, but CR's subbers have a strict time limit ( that might be the main reason for the original material negligence).

[Alto-hime]

Well, to each his own, I guess.

I think to judge their site (which bayoab said has over 1000 videos) on one or two series alone makes you sound a little biased or stubborn. I've had nothing but positive experiences with the newest titles.

I watched the Hayate version put out by that other fansub group after I started this discussion with you, to see how they compare, and honestly based on translation quality alone, they were practically indistinguishable.

Same with Saki, the only difference between the fansub and the Crunchyroll version was how they chose to translate the Mahjong vocab. That's editorial discretion, not poor quality translation.

Anyway, I want to see something to happen to help get the industry off of life support so I'm lending Crunchyroll my support. The industry needs every dollar they can get.

[0utf0xZer0]

I actually like the idea of Crunchyroll in principle (free samples, subscription for HD samples, and legal downloads for archive purposes), but there's some issues I have with the execution:

1) Dropped frames. I drop frames on their free H.264 streams. Yeah, it's still watchable and my PC is nearly six years old, but this PC handles a lot of 720P H.264 fansubs just fine. I imagine CR's HD streams would be unwatchable on my hardware.
2) Lack of series: granted, they do have a decent lineup of shows, but I still find myself watching more shows on fansub than CR. I have yet to see a seasons lineup that I'd be willing to pay $7 a month for HD of even if it did work fine on my PC.
3) Download quality: from what I've seen it's all xvid stuff. If I'm going to be paying for downloads of a show, I want 720P. And I want the option to redownload versions that have the DVD/Bluray version improvements when they come out.

I do have to admit that while I'm willing to pay some for HD streaming if they fix the technical issues and expand the lineup, I want the bulk of the money I spend on anime to come from buying downloads - I prefer to support specific creators rather than the industry as a whole. Hence, it's very important to me that the make an effort to make the download portion of their business successful.

Originally Posted by Vexx

I think I'd almost rather have digital video disks so that they can move up and away from the "DVD standard subtitle" crap and into the nicer stuff that we see on fansubs.

I suspect that when companies move away from DVD style subs, we'll see the move come with hardsubs first. I have my doubts as to whether many companies would be willing to deal with the support issues that come with using complex softsubs. Unlike fansubbers, they can't really assume everyone is using CCCP.

Originally Posted by SinsI

You named one yourself - Skip Beat!
I saw numerous jokes that were in the manga, were in the anime but weren't in their translation.
And at first they used some horribly made nickname instead of Moko.

Is this anything like Funimation's translation of School Rumble, which completely cut or replaced quite a few of the jokes that I remember being in the fansub releases?

[KimmyChan]

I also have an account on CR, just not a paid one

I'm just a regular normal member on there who hardly ever visits anymore nowadays

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Alto-hime

Well, to each his own, I guess.

I think to judge their site (which bayoab said has over 1000 videos) on one or two series alone makes you sound a little biased or stubborn. I've had nothing but positive experiences with the newest titles.

I watched the Hayate version put out by that other fansub group after I started this discussion with you, to see how they compare, and honestly based on translation quality alone, they were practically indistinguishable.

Same with Saki, the only difference between the fansub and the Crunchyroll version was how they chose to translate the Mahjong vocab. That's editorial discretion, not poor quality translation.

Anyway, I want to see something to happen to help get the industry off of life support so I'm lending Crunchyroll my support. The industry needs every dollar they can get.

The reason the saki "fansub" was similar is because all they did was take Cr's script and replace the mahjong terms with the original Japanese.
Oh, and they doubled the size of the notes without increasing the time they were on screen.

[KimmyChan]

I used to think that CR really was all that when I first joined, but not anymore

(Not since I discovered this place)