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Author Topic: Project SUB48 subtitles thread  (Read 9696 times)

Offline ET333

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Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« on: January 08, 2011, 08:27:35 PM »
Decided to turn this thread into our official thread for our releases  :twothumbs

--Original post--

Title: Translation effort

Some of you may not know me. I am et823, one of the moderators at the AKB48 online tracker (plus participate in several other communities with similar nicks).

So, after some discussion with people at the AKB48 tracker, I think it is time to get a translation team for the AKB48 tracker. I know it is hard and usually they crash when the translators retire, but it is worth a shoot. The idea is to gauge the possibilities we have to start something like this (we know there is demand), to see how many people are interested in participating and donate their free time to get this done.

Anyone interested can go to the thread at the tracker. If you don't have an account there, just create one (if you have problems creating, just tell me, since we are limiting now to one account per IP due idiots creating leeching accounts).

Contrary to previous efforts that were usually born and died within a community, I want to contact the whole AKB48 fandom, not only the tracker and this forum, but also the other main trackers and forums. So, it is likely you will see this post repeated in other forums. There is much talk about translations, so let's see how many are actually up for something this big.

I don't think this should be considered a spam message, since the goal is clear and in benefit of every AKB48 fan. Also, while discussion about whether this will work or not, pros and contras, and whether to join or not can be held here, I would appreciate if the actual serious discussion (timetables, software, etc) could be held in the thread I posted. I am kind of tired of finding lots of willing people to help but none actually organizing such an effort. While I don't have a background in fansubbing, I have over 5 years helping organize programming teams at work, including analysis and design, and setting one up shouldn't be harder if everyone is serious about the task.

And besides, if this fails, it would be nice to actually point to a thread showing that such an attempt has been made when someone new asks about why there is no weekly translations   :twisted:
« Last Edit: January 16, 2011, 04:03:00 AM by ET333 »

Offline ET333

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Re: Translation effort
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2011, 03:24:15 AM »
I know double posting is usually bad, and also know that a thread for only one person should not be allowed, but I think people would be interested in how goes the recruitment (and may encourage others to join us).

So far, one user from the AKB48 tracker and one user from H!O have offered help to translate. Both are JLPT2 level, and should be able to work without Japanese subtitles. There is also a user from D-Addicts who says she can help as well translating. And there is another user at the AKB48 tracker who mentioned someone close to him could translate for us, being a native.

We also have several people willing to do the QA check, and a few timers. Contrary to what I expected, timers are harder to come by   :?

One of the translators is starting with the 110105 AKBINGO! episode by himself, while another is testing with 110107 Shuukan AKB, that should show people around that we are doing something serious.

In total, around 15 persons are offering their help, and this is just a few hours after asking for help, far more than what I expected. We will continue accepting help, since four translators mean a lot of timing and QA required. I can't guess how many people would be in the project once we start in full force, and I also know managing large groups is never easy, but as long as each keeps sight of the goal and we keep organized and respect each other, we should manage.

I will keep everyone updated, maybe one update per day. Right now it is important to let everyone know things are advancing (faster as is right now, or slower, doesn't matter as long as we continue advancing).
« Last Edit: January 09, 2011, 03:29:29 AM by ET333 »

Offline ET333

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Re: Translation effort
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2011, 03:51:51 AM »
(Triple posting... looks like this will be a thread for only myself... I feel like a mod :lol:)

Daily update. We currently have 28 members (approximately 7 full translators (who can work from audio itself), 5 translators (who prefer working from Japanese subtitles, but can eventually do it from audio itself with some help), 8 timers, and 5 QA and 3 timer/QA). We also count with two Japanese native who can transcribe some sections for us, plus one of the full translators can transcribe as well.

110107 Shuukan AKB has been translated, and now it is being timed (50% done), while translation for 110105 AKBINGO! is underway. We already have assigned a translator for this week's AKBINGO! and Mousou Deka (the new SKE48 dorama).

For now we are still meeting at the AKB48 tracker forums, but we are already setting up FTP, a forum and a wiki. The IRC channel is already working (#SUB48@irc.rizon.net).

It has been a pretty busy weekend, but I think it has been really productive. I have posted similar requests in several places (Nihongogo, Stage48, H!O, Jpopsuki, D-Addicts, JPH!P, and asked people to help posting similar requests in other sites) and have found people interested in helping everywhere. This week we will start for serious. While subs may take a while to be finished, and may have some problems, I am sure we will become better as time advances.

Thanks for the support!

Offline SomethingWild

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Re: Translation effort
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2011, 03:59:48 PM »
Don't worry about the double posts.  :lol:

Sounds like you're organizing something really awesome, which all of us could benefit from.  :twothumbs

Quote
Mousou Deka

Yes, please!  :cow:

Offline ET333

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Re: Translation effort
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2011, 02:53:31 AM »
110107 SHUKAN AKB

There are a few things that were not translated (missed them, sorry), but for a two day group it wasn't that bad. We will try to oil gears with some more releases. If you share please share that link so that we can count the number of people who download (aka, interested) in the subs.

Also, http://twitter.com/#!/ProjectSUB48 is our official Twitter.

Credits go to everyone who helped. They know who they are  8)

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2011, 04:03:57 AM »
Mousou Deka episode 1 released. Took us a while, but the process was much cleaner than last time. In some weeks we should be able to do it faster and better.

Congrats to all those listed in the page. Since the subtitles themselves don't have group credits, it would be nice if you would share the forum post instead of the subtitle itself, to give those who helped what is due to them.

Offline SomethingWild

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2011, 11:22:14 AM »
^Awesome!

One minor comment, I was watching the 110107 Shukan sub and there were 3 instances of something like "comment 100316860065056 default" etc.

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2011, 03:07:22 PM »
Hmm... strange, I know the Shuukan sub had some problems but we didn't leave anything like that... could you do a few things for us? Edit the .ass file with notepad and search for "comment", I believe there is none but could be wrong (just to verify it is not our fault!). The other, check which line comes before and after those comments, maybe the line that is between then can't be shown by your media player. Also, tell me what is your media player (name, version, OS, etc). Thanks :-)

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2011, 06:51:07 AM »
We redid the 110107 Shuukan AKB subtitle, since it was the very first and came out too fast (missing signs, with some typos and errors, bad timing, etc). This one is how it should have been. I wanted the previous one to come fast out to give both those inside the project and those outside it a sliver of hope that we were in for something great. I believe it worked, since the group is maturing and getting to understand what is all this about better.

And the subtitle for the Documentary of AKB48 - The future 1mm ahead released. While we had the translation and timing done pretty fast, we spent a lot of time QA'ing this. There are probably some errors around, but personally it is the cleanest release we have had.

In the name of Project SUB48, I hope you enjoy it :-)

By the way, no attachments so that we are able to (roughly) estimate the amount of downloads. Statistics are very important during the beginning of the project when your previous records was 0 in everything. We will eventually share the subs via torrent, but for now, I kindly request everyone to link to the forum page instead of sharing the subtitle directly. Thanks!

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2011, 07:01:43 AM »
First hardcode release, the PV for Sakura no Ki ni Narou. We haven't yet defined our typesetting guideline, so it will likely change in the future. You can download it from the AKB48 Online or H!O trackers, and DDL sites (check the release page for those).
« Last Edit: January 23, 2011, 07:25:30 AM by ET333 »

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2011, 09:52:48 AM »
Fourth post in a row!

110114 SHUKAN AKB released. It is much easier to release Shuukan than AKBINGO! for those wondering. Credits to all the people who participated, and again, don't share the subtitles if possible, just point to our forum post.

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2011, 03:14:03 AM »
Mousou Deka! episode 2 released. As always, thanks to the team working on it. One day later, but eventually we should be able to speed that up to a couple of days.

As always, if you want to give away our subtitles, please give the forum release page instead. It isn't that hard to download them (we don't even request people to register in the forum), and we can really use the advertisement. You can find us in Facebook and Twitter, as Project SUB48, by the way.

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #12 on: January 28, 2011, 04:55:06 AM »
101222 AKBINGO! released. I expected it to be harder than Shuukan AKB, but never thought it would be this hard. What makes AKBINGO! hard is the edition: it is awfully edited, so you have scene changes while the previous audio is still running, all the girls talk at the same time so either you translate what you understand (which sometimes are monosyllables) or you leave a huge hole without subs while voices can actually be heard.

I hope we can streamline the process to make it faster. QA continues to be our bottleneck, and even with all our eyes there some mistakes still happen, but we have had some new people join to help us. With time we should be able to handle releases much faster. For now, remember our simple rules: if you want to share the subtitle, share the URL to the site instead. Also, if you use Facebook or Twitter, follow us. Several of the new hands are coming because of learning about us via social network. Thanks!

Offline Scatterbrain

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #13 on: January 30, 2011, 02:23:20 AM »
Great stuff. Thanks a lot for spreading this. If you need help, just ask.
Idols, idols everywhere >.<

Offline SomethingWild

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #14 on: February 01, 2011, 09:48:30 AM »
Just a head's up; subs for French Kiss at Music Japan and Mousou Deka ep 3 are also up: SUB48

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2011, 07:54:20 PM »
Decided to do only one post per week (although I should have posted before). Twitter is instantly updated with new uploads, but lazy forum lurkers can wait until I have free time to announce stuff  :P

Releases
Let's see, since my last post we released 101117 AKBINGO!, 101229 AKBINGO!, 110105 AKBINGO! and 110112 AKBINGO!. As always, get them from our forum.

News
Mousou Deka has been delayed because there was no active editor, but should be released during the week (hopefully before the next episode airs). Shuukan is being delayed because I don't have time to do it right now (been a week since it has been waiting for me check the QA feedback and apply it). The good news is that Idol x Idol #1 and Sashiko #1 are extremely solid, and should be finished soon. From what I remember, we have all 8 episodes (four each) already translated, so it is just a matter of working with them.

While we aren't yet a month old (that would be tomorrow), since I am staying at home today to help finish edit deliver some more subs, it may be a nice time to review what we have achieved: 13 subtitles (5 AKBINGO!, 2 Shuukan, 3 Mousou Deka and 3 one-shoot ones including the documentary) with over 3,000 downloads from our site not counting the over a thousand for the hardsubbed PV via BitTorrent (DDL statistics not included). Several individuals/groups are translating our subtitles to other languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French and Thai) and I hope more will do (contact me for conditions). This means we are releasing about 3 subtitles per week, which is a pretty high number. Sure, we would like to be up to date, but the initial "confusion" delayed us. We will try to keep up to date with Mousou, and with future doramas, but depends on who is still around when they are released.

Also, we are about 40-people strong (numbers can increase/decrease with time), have 18 subtitles waiting for available staff, and other 22 that are at different stages (from translation to timing, quality assurance and editing). News are that we are already translating Indy Gakuin, and started with Nemousu Season 5 and soon with the AKB48 New Year special. Plus we will be picking both AKB48 doramas, one with loveandcoffee's translation.

There is a lot still left, we still have problems with QA/editing, we still can't keep up to date with releases, and our internal processes aren't optimized (like subtitles finished but waiting several days before the timer start working, or waiting for QA for days before getting some feedback), but this month has given us all some experience about all this. We aren't stumbling like during the beginning, but we aren't still running at full speed. Let's just say we are jogging along the path [wink] What makes the milestone special is that most (if not all) of you were around when I requested help to start this group, so most (if not all) saw the project's birth, how it (almost) overcame skepticism and how it is delivering what it was supposed to do, spread the AKB48 love.

Finally, thanks for spreading the word, and for linking to our releases instead of giving our subs. It may seem pretty simple, but that allows us to get a small number of unique users per day, which hopefully will continue spreading the word about the Project. And thanks to all those helping within the project, without them this could have ended as just another attempt.

(Yep, this has been copy/pasted from other places)

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #16 on: June 20, 2011, 06:50:04 AM »
Bumping this thread after a while. I have been purging inactive QAs from our staff, and so right now we are in need of people with solid English to help us check the subtitles until they are ready for release.

What we need are people who are serious about this, because we put our best effort translating and timing and it is somewhat disappointing that what is supposed to be the easiest task of all (correct grammar and typos, not playing it down, but it should be easier to find someone knowing English than someone knowing Japanese) is our bottleneck. And due the lack of effective QA subtitles get delayed and translators, disappointed.

So, this is the time to show you are really interested in helping the community. Check our recruitment thread if you have the time and the love to do it.

PS: Of course, translators will always be welcomed  :thumbup

Offline ET333

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Almost anniversary edition
« Reply #17 on: January 08, 2012, 06:43:02 PM »
We are just 10 days away from our first anniversary, and I am happy to say we have finished over 100 subtitles in this time. Things have been rough, could have been better, but overall the experience has been positive. Just like last year, this is around the time when most people are available to help because of vacations, so I am again asking for help.

We are mainly looking for translators and people with good English to work in quality assurance. For some shows like Shuukan we have closed captions which can be used for translating, plus we have a stable set of translators who can help with lines you don't understand. For QAs, we need people who can fix grammar mistakes, and who can make sentences flow naturally.

Our next two big projects are the AKB Documentary that NHK will air on January 23 and the Kin Sma special aired on January 6. The more QAs we have, the faster we will be able to release them. We are also working on SKE48 no Magical Radio (episode 3 is being currently checked) and AKBINGO! with the support of KSK48, a translation group from Indonesia. And we have certain interest in translating Sasshi's dorama, if we get at least one more stable translator.

Back when we started there wasn't another active AKB48 translation team, so the pressure was immense. Now that they are gaining global recognition, our task is not only to feed existing fans but also to explain new ones what AKB48 is about. There are still people thanking us for the very first documentary, because it was a great introduction, and I hope the Sma Special and the Documentary of AKB48+1 will have an even bigger effect.

I want to publicly thank all the people who joined me a year ago, because without them the project wouldn't have started. There are still people who are working in this project a year after, which makes me happy. There is a contributor core: others might come and go, but as long as that core stays, we can continue.

As always, we can be found here, from where you can download our subtitles, and at #SUB48@irc.rizon.net, where we work, chat and idle. We have a Twitter account and a Facebook one which you can follow to get updates. Even if you cannot translate, time or check subtitles, liking us in Facebook, retweeting our releases, linking to us or simply mentioning us in sites and forums will help us gather more visits, which increase the possibility of finding people who can help us making subtitles faster and better.

Finally, thanks to everyone for the given support, and hopefully we will be able to continue forward during this year as well.
ET

Offline ET333

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Re: Project SUB48 subtitles thread
« Reply #18 on: November 06, 2012, 12:36:12 AM »
If anyone got time, please help us by answering our poll: Do people want/need/appreciate our subtitles?, thanks.

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