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Transcription: bayoab. Notes: ( ) is usually commenting on the panel and was not said. (??) indicates inaudible or unclear audio at that point where a word may be missing or guessed at. Transcript last updated: 7-23-09 rev. 0.9 (99% complete, minor errors and a couple missing parts remain) 12:31:12 <> (Only four of the panelists are here...and... 12:29:36 <> ~60 people) 12:32:00 <> Hello everyone 12:32:11 <> It's just going to be another minute while we wait for a couple of people to show up. 12:36:56 <> Taking Seats now 12:37:01 <> Okay 12:37:13 <> Mod:Welcome to the super secret panel 12:37:16 <> Thank you all for coming, I don't know how you found out about it. 12:37:36 <> (Idle chatter) 12:37:51 <> So this is the 2009... Furry and Industry panel... I believe... right? Is that what this is? 12:38:10 <> No, this is the 2009 Fansubs and Industry panel. I'm glad you came. 12:38:12 <> some of you were here last year 12:38:26 <> we had a pretty good discussion and we'll continue it a little bit today. Maybe a little less formalized since it's a cozy group today. I just want to ask all the panelists up here to introduce themselves. Who they are and what they do briefly and then we'll get started. 12:38:46 <> My name is Niels, known as jfs online. I'm the head developer of the aegisub subtitling program. You probably hear that I have a big of an accent. I'm visiting from europe. Mod: He flew in from denmark. 12:38:54 <> For those that don't know, that's the software that's basically... that's the software that every... all of the fansubbers use. It's actually being used in a lot of industry settings now. Actually, I should introduce myself as well. 12:39:14 <> My name is Ken Hoinsky, I am now running a company called MXMedia, we do a lot of subtitles for the anime industry... like Crunchyroll, Viz, Bandai, clients like that. And we actually use that as one of our internal programs. That's an excellent program. So, I'm very glad you could make it and thank you for the software. 12:39:26 <> Hi, I'm also known as interactii online. I am one of the cofounders and one of the staff of Dattebayo fansubs. 12:39:46 <> getfresh, and I'm an alcoholic... I love you all... I almost didn't find the panel... and I did fansubbing at one time. 12:39:55 <> Lance Heiskill, marketing director at FUNimation 12:40:15 <> I'm Sean Molyneux, I work at Media Blasters. I used to be in charge of production, Now in charge of doing experimental projects basically. 12:40:29 <> I'm Derrick Liu. I'm a video editor at Media Blasters. So if you've watched voltron, I removed the dust from the video. One frame at a time... one piece at a time. 12:40:48 <> Ken (K): So we'll hit on some discussion points then lots of Q&A since last year we didn't have a chance to do a lot of Q&A. 12:41:03 <> So the first topic I'd like to throw out there, actually, is to the industry fellows over here. Where do you think the DVD and Blu-ray markets are going right now. 12:41:05 <> Lance (L): I guess I'll start. For us, the DVD market has been softening. 12:41:22 <> But a lot of that is due to retailers, but we noticed in the past two years that DVD... that DVD single volumes... no one is buying them anymore. 12:41:29 <> The more fans that get in, (??), the more expensive it is for them to get in. We did season sets. Those are doing well, we want them to do better. 12:41:35 <> We've had hiccups with retail because of the economy. 12:41:40 <> Blu-ray... We've got in house authoring on Blu-ray. 12:42:03 <> And so, whenever we get a title, we always get HD and Blu-ray rights. Like all the shows like East of the Eden and then... sorry Eden of the East... someone is going to post on the forums that he doesn't know what he is talking about and then Casshern sins. So you know, it's just we're trying to do all the Blu-ray we can and trying to all the old shows as well. 12:42:20 <> So it's doing well for us, we want it to do better but the economy and the other factors 12:42:30 <> We have Dragonball to sustain us throughout the economy but we're doing fine for now. But you always have to have sales. 12:42:37 <> Ken:When you said the retailers, that's like Bestbuy's cutting down their anime? 12:43:11 <> Lance: Yea well, a Bestbuy cut it down to like 1000 stores, but a lot of lot of suburbs and hipsters and hipsters don't watch much anime so they went back and they got more selective with titles. So if you kind of wonder why the the nichier stuff isn't really carried by Bestbuy and bestbuy cut back and working with FYE and all of your local anime shops. Stuff like that. 12:43:15 <> Ken: How are things doing over at Media Blasters? 12:43:35 <> Sean: I definitely have to agree that... you need to think about the retailers when you think about these kinds of questions. The retailers are not as smart as the companies and a lot of the stupid things that fans see companies do is actually dictated by retailers. A lot of people don't realize just how much power retailers have. 12:43:43 <> When retailers see a market soften like DVD, they get scared... and they make decisions that... they make decisions for the fans and they make decisions for the anime companies. 12:43:49 <> Which is somewhat frustrating, but it happens... and we have to deal with it. 12:43:53 <> One way we do is... our standard practice is we get a big title, a mainstream title that's not really going to appeal to anime fans like... Invader Zim... well that appeals to anime fans because it's awesome. 12:44:14 <> But on those kinds of things, then we have the retailer's attention, and then we bring our anime. If we didn't have those, we wouldn't be able to do anything with retailers. So that's just the way business works. 12:44:25 <> And... other than that, the DVD market... we, as you know, mostly have niche titles other than our big mainstream releases. 12:44:30 <> And niche titles are fine because the people who really want them will go after them. So as far as the DVD market, we are pretty happy with that aspect of it. 12:44:51 <> As for blu-ray.... Blu-ray has nothing on DVD. Blu-ray is not going to explode into your stores, it's not going to do what DVD did and take the video market from a cool thing you rent sometimes to something that every single person has a giant collection has... you know, no one is going to have, well some people, but you aren't going to find the average person with 200 blu-rays like they have 200 DVDs. It's just not going to happen. 12:44:56 <> The new big market is internet... 12:45:01 <> and blu-ray is not the (??) market. 12:45:07 <> It's fun and I love the fact that it looks awesome. 12:45:16 <> We are doing a bunch of live-action movies in Blu-ray... and we are going to start anime soon. 12:45:35 <> We have the rights on most of our anime where we can get the master... so we will should be seeing lots of Blu-ray next year. And I'm sure it will do pretty well but it's not going to be the big market. The question is how you can get on the internet and make the internet work for you. 12:45:45 <> L: Just one quick followup, we had a dual DVD release and Blu-ray... Shigurui. We released that... Blu-ray was actually 35% of our sales. 12:45:55 K: Not bad. I remember DVDs when they were first coming out, anime was a huge push for those. You seeing the same thing with blu-ray... is that really... I mean percentage wise let's say... anime fans tend to buy more DVDs than Blu-rays. 12:46:15 L: We get these survey cards. You know nerd-nerd fact, consumers... blu-ray is only 10% of the market right now. Our survey cards, we say do you own a PS3 or Blu-ray, we have 30%. So we have early adopters. 12:46:32 <> Sean: We always have, that's one thing DVD. And you say the anime industry got its power in the market place from the fact that anime fans all had DVD players, every single goddamn one of them, so their power as purchasers was much in the eyes of big retailers. 12:46:42 <> Lance: And yea... in our (??) video. He was pushing Tenchi Laserdiscs back there. It goes in cycles. 12:47:02 <> Ken: Okay touching on something you said Lance...and I wanted to actually ask about it.... actually I think Sean actually said it... internet and how it's going to be the future market. This is a question that affects both fansubbers and industry alike. 12:47:08 <> The question is about simulcasts. That's probably the biggest change in the anime industry since we did this panel last year. 12:47:19 <> Now it's like, I don't know the percentage but a very large number of new shows are being simulcast online through Crunchyroll and FUNimation. 12:47:33 <> So the question is where is the simulcast market going and I'd like everyone to chime in on that if they can. 12:47:34 <> One big thing that was actually a big news item was the fellows at Dattebayo decided to drop... stop subtitling Naruto when it was announced it was going to be simulcast which was quite an interesting decision, so maybe you can mention something about that. 12:47:51 <> I: Yeah... that decision was made directly as a result of that. It was kinda made in an effort to support the fledgling... kinda... industry, if you will, of streaming anime. And I don't know whether it helped or not. 12:47:53 <> So it was made in that vain and we really support that and so it's basically doing what we want to see. 12:48:08 <> It's getting anime to fans, quickly. It's getting anime to fans subtitled, you know, even though we have some disagreements on the job that Viz does on those subtitles or anything else. 12:48:09 <> It's getting... it's moving in the right direction. 12:48:15 <> And it's really getting where we need to go so that was a big factor in that decision. 12:48:26 <> G: One thing on simulcasts that I thought was kinda funny. 12:48:34 <> When we were initially setting this panel up, I talked to Crunchyroll and they said tha they weren't going to have anyone at the convention. And they wanted to know if they could simulcast someone on the panel... and I was just shaking my head the entire time... like how do I respond to this. 12:48:53 <> But yea, the simulcast market is a great thing, it's going to get better once they stop trying to make their own methods to do the subtitling or the programs that softsub them and all that. 12:49:07 <> We're getting a lot of problems. The most feedback is I see from fans on the internet is just do it the way that everyone else is doing it. Stop trying to do it some original new wheel way and you won't have crappy looking subs that don't work. 12:49:17 <> I: I think a surprising amount of the appeal of streaming... I think a big portion of that is people who watch fansubs 12:49:28 <> and i think that people are starting to get the idea that some of your core market of streaming media is fansub viewers 12:49:33 <> and if you kinda sell to that demographic, you can pull them away from fansubs and get them to the place that they really need to be. K: How about, you guys talk about simulcasts and the simulcast market. 12:50:00 <> L: A lot of it is, in Japan they are aware of fansubs, we're aware of fansubs. The technology and all of the approvals cause a lot of stuff for simulcast is you have to get those approvals from the Japanese and ...all these shows have... you have to convince them and you have convince them the technology works and if the technology doesn't work, then you have to convince them even harder... with all the limitations. 12:50:03 <> So a lot it is, is an effort. 12:50:08 <> It's like you know, with the fansub groups, you get the raw 12:50:14 <> You don't have to ask for permission, you get the raw and you put it out. 12:50:18 <> But for us, you have to pay for that shit... to get to it, to get the raw and then put it out 12:50:25 <> And then the hosting bandwidth since we're not using torrents, so a lot of that is, okay well thats a cost. 12:50:31 <> So it's either on our side or we're working with hulu or working with youtube to pay for ad revenue 12:50:36 <> and that ad revenue supplements our streaming costs and then it also... 12:50:44 <> half of that revene goes to Japanese licensors 12:50:57 <> so if you watch the simulcasts, the official simulcasts, you are actually like, even though it's free, you are still generating revenue for the creators. 12:51:01 <> Anime is a commercial art form. You don't do it for free in japan so a lot of it is leme watch something streaming once. 12:51:12 <> K: Well certainly the production process when you are dealing with industry work, is very... it's inefficient I would say... inefficient. 12:51:16 <> The fansub process is much more streamlined and much more simpler to do. 12:51:22 <> And that's actually a big problem that's probably needs to be, eventually one day, it's going to have to be solved. 12:51:27 <> You know, I'll tell you actually, cause we do a lot of... my company right now is doing a lot of the videos for Crunchyroll, for the simulcasts. 12:51:46 <> And like, people don't realize, like, so Japan, if they are sending us materials before it is out on television in Japan, they are... security is very high. So we actually don't get... like a fansubber might get 1080p or whatever HD, nice video stream. 12:52:08 <> They only send us little postage size videos with watermarks on them. 12:52:01 <> And then we will have a sign that is critical to the plot of the show that we literally cannot translate because we can't see it. And then people are watching it and they are going, oh man, that fansub group that is doing that show, look at this beautiful.. the translation they did... look how great it blends into the video. Yea, we really don't have that option. 12:52:23 <> So it's, that's actually an area that I know myself and I'm sure lots of other people are frustrated by... 12:52:46 <> is that's really an area where the fansubbers really have a leg up and it's a problem to the industry because to the end viewer, that's the more high quality product. That's a problem, because it's free. And it's tough to complete with a high quality product in their minds that's free. So that's going to be an issue that the industry is going to have to resolve. 12:52:46 <> I want to actually ask, what are the digital plans over at Media Blasters, are you guys doing anything? 12:52:59 <> S: We are... we got a lot of our stuff on hulu. And we got some stuff on xbox live, the ps3 services, there is a lot of stuff, like phoenix is on itunes. 12:53:03 <> Mostly we're working with established companies right now and putting it up on their service. 12:53:15 <> It worked out pretty well for us if well we are able to get our products on a lot of different services. Have a lot of income streams coming in, making it worth our time and energy. 12:53:21 <> Right now, we are thinking of setting up our own streaming service as well, but that's just in the early stages. We'll probably do some experiments first. 12:53:27 <> K: Sounds expensive and if you build... build your own site... it's certainly a... 12:53:41 <> L: One thing to add is... you know, two points. Point number would be, with our streaming anime, there are rights territories. That's another thing that we have... that's a huge issue 12:53:43 <> It's like for some shows, we just get North American rights, Canada and the US 12:53:56 <> and then like South Africa and the territories... and sometimes we do get Australia, sometimes we don't, sometimes we get the UK, sometimes we don't. 12:54:14 <> An interesting point with Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood was... Panini in europe, it was around ep 6, they were .. had a partnership with youtube where they were putting up the show up in 13 languages... and so... 12:54:16 <> we were working with them, conference call with us, youtube, and panini 12:54:22 <> about handling all the rights for all the territories 12:54:45 <> So another thing to add, the effect of fansubs in america is now becoming global where, you know, since in a lot of countries english is a second language 12:54:48 <> now the local countries are realizing like wow, we can do it in their local language, it's actually a little more of a cost benefit for them, which is good for a lot of people too. 12:55:13 <> K: I think it has to go global. That's going to be the future for simulcasts.... cause it's tough to have a show that, let's say it's not being streamed in the UK for example, and they want to watch it and they know that people in america are watching it. What are they going to do? They will download the torrent. That's really their only option. One can say can you really blame them. If they really want to watch the show, that's their only option. 12:55:13 <> It's going to have to go global 12:55:23 <> And I imagine, like funimation, I imagine you guys are trying to get global rights for everything you can for streaming but it doesn't always happen. 12:55:56 <> J: On the point of international... Recently, I did notice, some people in denmark "Hey there are danish subs of FMA on youtube, that's cool" They do like it. They get used to it. It's a shame we can't see... most licenses don't cover denmark.. and we get horrible DVD releases in Denmark so... 12:56:04 <> K: I know everyone in the UK, they import american DVDs. Cause I don't know if it's cheaper or better selection or the time is faster. It's very common over there. 12:56:09 <> J: Indeed, we see lots of both US and Austalian imports in Denmark. 12:56:29 <> L: What just recently happened is we switched distribution to Madman in UK so those who are watching on ANN, there is a better option. 12:56:34 <> G: I want to know, with the new advent of simulcasts, have leaks become a bigger issue? Cause I know there was a leak a while ago... there was a problem. 12:56:46 <> L: Yea, that was a big... a big problem. Well, that is, well yea, our security wasn't up to par, get with it, and so.. it was lots of nights. 12:56:53 <> Lots of calls, lots of consultants on the phone, lots of meetings and apologies, and write... documentations... 12:56:57 <> And it's going to make our service better. 12:57:14 <> That's the... we fessed up to it, there was a problem, we got it corrected. We're still dealing with some issues, but, we're working for the better. 12:57:15 <> G: Basically shit happens 12:57:21 <> L: Yea... see, he can say that... I can't. 12:57:42 <> G: It's a line I get from many fansubbers, trust me. Another thing I kinda want to go into on this panel is, I've heard this in the past that the big problem is when you guys finish your script, you have to get it reviewed with Japan, and you have to go back and forth with them on multiple things. 12:58:03 <> L: One thing with the script, primarily, the script is names and cultural references... G: Right A lot of that, for a lot of the shows, we don't get the scripts approved, it all depends on the contract. A lot of it is the names and credits. 12:58:03 <> Primarily the credits are key cause you don't want to, you know mispronounced or mispell the name... 12:58:31 <> G You don't want to put a girls name for a guy. L: Yea yea. G: But the system you use to send that to them and get it back, and the wait period? What's this you use, you just email it to them? 12:58:27 <> L: No, what we do is we have an online database. G: You have a server... L: Yea yea, it's online, VPN on, a ?? database... then a lot of the contracts with ?? ->(21:20) 12:58:37 <> Our production team has daily emails with our Japanese partners. 12:58:57 <> K: I'm not going to name the show, but it was just a few... recently. We had a show... a new simulcast starting and it had a bunch of names in the show, that were clearly made up... they were made up western sounding names... and how do you spell those in english... it's just. You're just shooting from the hip whatever. 12:59:07 <> So we kept going back, and said "Hey, how do you want these spelled, what are these spellings". 12:59:11 <> You know especially with anime, later on, 5 episodes in, it will show up on a screen written in english... and you will have a totally different spelling.. and it just looks really dumb... and at that point, do you stick with the spelling you were using... do you switch it up, 12:59:19 <> And they got us back the list of names the day after it aired, so it didn't do a whole lot. 12:59:39 <> S: That's something we've been working with in the anime field forever. Now it's sort of magnified thanks to, the fact you pointed out, one episode at time simulcasts. But we've always had a problem. 12:59:46 <> Gaogaigar was an amazing epic feat of names that didn't quite make sense... 12:59:58 <> But the ultimate weapon was called daigon X, written daigon X on some screens, written projectile X, unbelievably misspelled, with many J's. Sometimes on other screens and sometimes written out, and the literal translation is bullet X 13:00:02 <> So, it's always going to be a sticking point. 13:00:08 <> You have to try and think of what the original creator was thinking of, what was he referencing. Sometimes, they just thought it sounded cool 13:00:29 <> K: I had a client tell me, it was a japanese client. They said, they actually explicitly said "do not use any of the spellings, the english spellings you see on the screen, the animators do not speak english" And I was like thank you. 13:00:42 <> D: Another thing about the credits just for like the crew is that, usually, I'm the guy doing the credits at the end, either whether its over textless or just on black. I wait for the excel sheet which says Credits Approved which means Japan has gone through them. 13:01:01 <> And I've been taken Japanese for a couple years now and I pick out Japanese names that are spelled wrong... S: by the Japanese D: by the Japanese... I say, and I say, that shouldn't be a Z, that should probably be a J, so I have to go back to someone in the office who speaks Japanese and ask them if it's correct or not. K?: And they don't know. 13:01:09 <> D: Usually, they do know, but sometimes they are not sure, so then we then have to send it back to Japan and get another approval. 13:01:17 <> S: And that's the fun part. Even if they made a mistake, you have to still find approval to fix that mistake. 13:01:48 <> K: You know, I was curious, because we do a lot of credit translations for movies and stuff, and I ran into some numbers after approvals and before approvals, and the average japanese person, native, never been to america in their life, can read with a dictionary, maybe 90% of their own names. You know, it's really, it's a mess. It's really hard to deal with. 13:01:56 <> Okay, another question, I know that, moving on a little bit, was we want to talk a bit about production 13:01:59 <> and the tools and the methods that go into it because there are certain things that the industry does 13:02:07 <> certain things that the fansubbers do, there's some overlap, there's some areas that should be overlapping and they aren't. 13:02:19 <> And I wanted to talk about that because we have the great opportunity with people from the anime industry here, fansubbers, and the fellow who writes the most used subtitling software right now actually is sitting here today. 13:02:32 <> I wanted to actually ask if... either of you... anyone can jump in. What are techniques that you find efficient that you don't see the industry using... or tools? 13:02:51 <> G: Mainly aegisub... mainly aegisub. I've seen the professional software for subtitling and it's just archaic, it's horrible. It's really crappy stuff. And the automation that aegisub can do. And let's put it this way, I was watching subtitles on some show called drawn together, on another network, and they had a fake little pikachu thing. And there subtitles were actually, practically sametime, they actually (??) too and everything. And then I look at a professional release by the industry, and I say it wasn't you guys, but they have overruns, the subs will hang on screen, you will have two subs at the same time for two different people and they have a little dash and I'm supposed to know who the hell is talking by a dash. You know, who the hell is talking on screen. 13:03:16 <> I: I think a lot of that is just legacy styling. It's been.. it's kinda just evolved. 13:03:20 <> Whereas if you look at fansub styling, it's been continuously changing... and I don't why it's being changing, I mean why does it change? 13:03:22 <> It just kinda moves with time.. 13:03:32 <> whereas the standards that are used for Dvd production at least in my mind are the standards that have been used for dvd production. I think that's keeping a lot of precedent. 13:03:33 <> I've seen a shift there 13:03:40 <> there has definitely been some improvement in that area. And I think that will continue to happen. 13:03:57 <> Especially, not as the line, but the stylistic line between fansub styling and industry styling, if there is such a thing, will start to meld and merge and I think that will really be beneficial. 13:04:10 <> G: I don't think it's really the typeset styling itself that should be focused on... cause... I'm sorry, most fansubbers don't know what the hell they are doing on styling. 13:04:14 <> But the industry has got one thing right on styling. You make them big and you make them readable. 13:04:27 <> The one place the industry is failing on it is, you actually can change fonts guys, it doesn't always have to be the same font 13:04:43 <> It doesn't have to be something burly or crazy like a little girl show and you have flowers in the words. But you can actually change colors too. I mean the yellow and black, yea, it's the most readable thing, but it's one of the ugly, atrocious things to look at in the world. 13:04:49 <> I mean you can do white and black... you can do a whole bunch of other things, and putting shadows on things or anything like that.... I mean we aren't using genlocks anymore. You can do a lot of stuff now. 13:04:55 <> I just don't see a reason to be stuck to the old way just because "hey we did this back in 1996, i guess it works now." 13:05:15 <> J: On that, I know DVD subtitles are limited... but I know bluray subtitles and when you are displaying subtitles on a flash video player for example... you can do a lot more stuff 13:05:12 <> Are you in the industry planning to exploit that stuff. 13:05:20 <> L: Yea, with blu-ray, (??), DVDs are such a legacy... whenever you put it on a 52" tv at home, yea like, cringe. 13:05:39 <> But then you pop in the blu-ray of that version, and it's like oh yes, my eyes, this is good... 13:05:49 <> So, and then with the digital... one of the things that really switched was, whenever we just did dvds, subtitling was at the end of the production process, now it's at the very front 13:06:07 <> And, what with us is, whenever we are doing simulcasts, we'll get that episode. But then for TV they hurry such much in Japan, that whenever they put out the DVD, they clean a lot of stuff up, 13:06:09 <> and then you have to translate it again, and then you have to retime it, so you're actually doing the same work twice. 13:06:22 <> S: They also actually sometimes actually change material. We had a problem with Phoenix, they removed a lot of depressing lines and made them less depressing. That did not make me happy because i thought the original was awesome. 13:06:30 <> But I just want to say subtitling was developed by the french, a long long time ago, when there was home video or home vcrs 13:06:35 <> and they created one rule for subtitles... by the way, most of the french rules, i think they (??) i've argued with a french film maker about subtitles for about four hours... shoot myself... so i'm not condoning it 13:06:50 <> but they have one rule which is, after a few minutes, the viewer should forget they are subtitles, so they are just reading and watching... 13:06:54 <> so anything you do to draw attention to the subtitles is bad... and I totally agree 13:07:09 <> the only time you should use anything funky with subtitles what so ever is to solve a problem.. now of course a problem... on screen text is a problem, three people talking at once, a problem, so unless you are solving a problem, subtitles should be simple, plain, readable... invisible to your mind, not your eye, your mind. 13:07:29 <> G: I've written several of the subtitle guides for the fansubbing scene and the thing I always say is your subtitles should be as boring as possible and you shouldn't even notice they are there. 13:07:36 <> You don't want (??)... you don't want to be remembered... if somebody remember's your name as a styler and typesetter, you are doing something horribly wrong. But they shouldn't know who you are, at all. 13:07:41 <> And the biggest compliment you can get is, your fansub subtitles are so boring that I would never use that font. 13:07:53 <> The major rules you have is... any line... this is more of an editing rule, any line should never be more than 2 lines long. Any subtitle. Period. Like if you got three lines on there, you got a paragraph and you got problems. People can't read that much at once without noticing it. It totally takes their mind off what they are watching. 13:08:01 <> You shouldn't have the subtitles so low that they are reading the bottom of the screen. 13:08:07 <> That becomes a big issue if someone puts it up on a projector, you got the overscan problem or you just have someone reading the bottom of the screen and you don't see the action that is going on. 13:08:11 <> You shouldn't have anything fancy that is going to stick out and is going to be a problem. 13:08:19 <> you shouldn't have animation of things in the main episode. I've seen people do that a lot 13:08:30 <> the most animation you should ever have is, if there is a washout or a fadeout, yea, you do it there, so that way it will smoothly go with the video. It's not jerking on and off. 13:08:33 <> That's about it for styling (~31:00) 13:08:52 <> S: I would actually say the best compliment you can get as a subtitler is "I love that show", not I love that subtitle so I love your work, I just love that show because that means they got so into it that they understood everything and that they enjoyed it, and they didn't notice the subtitles. 13:09:28 <> K: I know one topic that they also wanted to hit on had to do with the actual workflow for the production of the translation and subtitles... not so much dubs because that doesn't really... that isn't really fair to the fansubbers because they don't really have any involvement with that... but the work flow, how things are done, where it can improve or potentially for the industry side, that sort of thing... 13:09:31 <> So I guess.. what are your thoughts on that as far as... 13:09:47 <> One thing I know with the fansub world is they have a lot of people doing a lot of tasks, individual tasks for certain shows. They might have 5 or 6 or 10 people go over the script by the end, all doing their little specialty, timing or editing or translating or whatever it may be. 13:09:56 <> a lot of shows that are done in the industry have, they make the translator will be the timer, and then you will have an editor and some qc and it will go out. It doesn't have all those eyes going over it. 13:10:02 <> I know that's one area that is different just as an example. But I guess, what are.... what are your guys thoughts on that. 13:10:07 <> G: My thought is translators shouldn't time 13:10:11 <> Everytime I've seen a translator time, there have been so many problems. 13:10:24 <> I: Yeah, I mean, it's a...you know timing doesn't... kinda gets glossed over I think a lot of people's minds but it's pretty important. 13:10:31 <> getting the right line at the right time is not a problem for anyone who has any comprehension of japanese, but I personally think there is a lot to be said for having the line show up and leave at the right time... and not overlap other lines and not be there when it's not supposed to. 13:10:45 <> and that can.. i know when im watching something and a line is there that doesn't belong there, i know some japanese and it jars me and i'm like what, well why am i looking at the subtitles now... that happens... 13:10:48 <> G: that's a major thing, thats a major part of it 13:11:14 <> In fansubbing, you have a translator and then you have a translation checker, and then you have a timer who is like a third translation checker... cause timers, if you time for more than a few years, you know basically every single easy or normal phrase that a japanese person says and you catch the translators all the time mistranslating stuff... cause they are not listening to it, they are probably watching something on youtube while translating the episode... 13:11:28 <> And, you'll get that... and it's probably really, really boring to translate.. if i had to transcribe something that's a full episode of some show that i really don't like with whiny high pitched girls, i'm probably just... i'm going to zone it out at some point. 13:11:37 <> And the timer has to listen to those voices... and they have to I: over and over and over again G: Nah, don't even bring it up... this morning he was playing one of those shows, over and over and over... But no, the timer is going to catch every little missed word and every little thing 13:11:56 <> And after the timer, you have the typesetter, who has to go through the whole thing and watch it, who is going to catch issues on the timer... and when you give multiple tasks to one person, you are going to incur more, problems, you are going to have more mistakes, and by the time it gets to the person at the end who is the ...like... end production... (like ??? guys) "it looks good, let's just ship it out." 13:12:09 <> So that's some of the things in the fansub process that could possibly fix problems in the industry that we've all seen over the years. 13:12:14 <> L: The one point on that is the difference between volunteer and commercial... so a lot of that is head count. 13:12:26 <> It's okay... you have to.... It's kinda like, a combination of the division of labor... it's like you do this, and you do this. 13:12:33 <> S: if its volunteer, its easier to have... the more people you have... when you get salaries, and hire employees, the less people you have. 13:12:54 <> G: Of course, I totally agree. Like, the more people you got, the more salaries you have. Another thing is when you get someone who is highly specialized in a field, you save money over time because there is less checking that needs to be done... you know this person is going to do it the right way that one time and they will check their own work and if you do work for hire on these types of things, like i know you guys do a lot, then you have one fee to pay. And if the translator... if the timer is taking away from the translator... no offense to the translators out there, but they have to pay a little bit, pay that money to the guy who is timing it. And you pay him for his specialty and the translator... his specialty... he went to school for translating. He didn't go to school for timing. 13:13:13 <> And that's... the timing is really bad by some translators. 13:13:31 <> L: The one thing I can say is that I can't speak on behalf of our production department... I know that they will listen to this video... I mean they will watch this video. 13:13:50 <> S: I can speak on behalf of production... probably because I've worked there for about 8 years... I totally agree, and that's generally the goal of our production department is to divide the labor up into as many parts as possible. We've never had a translator do the timing except for some extras on some of our tokyo shock live action films, and if you ever saw one, you would probably know. 13:13:56 <> But anyway, that's sorta the goal. But it's always a challenge, you've always got people saying can you do more stuff with less people... and you always got people who will be like you know i'd be able to do my job a lot better if this part of my job was done by someone else... cause I'm not that good with that part of it. 13:14:12 <> and you try to balance things the best you can 13:14:17 <> G: With most fansub groups I've worked for, have had teams of.. I think the maximum team we used to have was like 4-5 people... at most... and like some groups will have like 10 people on a project and they will all be doing their individual job 13:14:25 <> Back when i first started digisubbing, there was no such thing as a typesetter. You were the timer and the typesetter. That was your job. 13:14:29 <> There has been more division of jobs recently, 13:14:42 <> but the only reason we have an extra job now for like the two translators is just a checks and balance system. 13:14:42 <> Your translation checker should always be a better translator than the translator is himself, better or equal. 13:14:47 <> you can't have someone who is less adapt to it checking on somebody 13:15:12 <> And that's only like the only time those really come into fact is like on a highly technical show where they use a lot of technical terms... even if they are using them incorrectly, but they are technical terms... the japanese like... i dunno, ive had too many problems with translators mistranslating technical terms... different ways in the same episode. 13:15:24 <> S: We usually do have a translator and a translation manager looks over, mostly because a lot of our best translators have moved on to other departments... and so, because they are separated and pass stuff back and forth, but yea, that can be an issue 13:15:40 <> You learn what the translators are good at. Some translators are great at technical stuff, our translator for gaogaigar would research, research, we're talking like... for every hour of translation he did, I think he did four hours of research. 13:15:47 <> G: Yea, I've had translators like that, for like, what's it called, Battleflag of the Stars, SNS, he actually went and learned the language. Like he sat there and learned their little space language thing using that... and yea... he had the font and everything, and he could write in it. And I'm like "you're going to way too far but that's realy cool. " 13:16:00 <> Like some people really love the super duper nerdy stuff. And then some people just like translating. And that's what ?? what the translator is most interested in, they will do the best job at. 13:16:12 <> D: Also when you have a show with lots of cultural references, the translator isn't always native Japanese... sometimes they can miss lots of those. So, for Genshiken for example, the translator is american and would ask our translation manager at the time a lot of questions because he didn't know all of the anime references and stuff like that too. 13:16:49 <> K: Yea... I remember in the... I actually knew the editor I think it was... for Genshiken... I thought he was the editor... he was the editor for the fansubs actually and I remember seeing the fansub and it had every little reference... I mean everything was just nailed... It was beautiful you know and i used to give the guy the hardest time... I was like "How big of a nerd are you 13:17:01 <> How do you know all this stuff?" And he's like "i had to research it, I didn't know it" Yea, okay man. 13:17:08 <> G: Well, sometimes they go to far. I: Yea, it does go too far. G: I mean like honestly, will that cultural reference make the scene for you? Is it really important for you to know that she's talking about her chopsticks and rice? No. Unless the show is heavily into puns like Yakitate was, way back when, and you have to explain the puns for the person to get the scene, they don't need to do it. Like sometimes it's just pointless. 13:17:27 <> It's like me. If I'm watching a movie in the United States, it's in english or it was made here. I'm from here, but it's about the deep south, do i really need a note on the cultural references of the deep south even though I don't know that area and I don't know that joke from that area? No. It's part of the mystique of the video I'm watching and a lot of people miss that point. 13:17:29 <> K: I think fans.. a lot of fans like it though. 13:17:33 <> G: You know what, they can get the cliff notes... (??) 13:17:42 <> I: You know, I dunno, because last year, I know one point i made was americanization, americanization, americanization. 13:17:59 <> And so then i started to see on services like CR... well they weren't americanizing, they were going the other way. You have like two hundred notes in an episode and I'm like whoa, wait a minute. G: The pendulum swung the other way. 13:18:04 <> I: I mean it's great, but find the center, that's kinda (??) ?: I like notes in a booklet. I: Yea, notes in booklet is a great thing. ?: Like the naussica manga which has all of the sound effects in the back. 13:18:28 <> G: That's one thing, when you are reading a manga, I really hate that. When all the sound effects and all the cultural references and it's like " We're going to italicize this part and like, you read to the back to it and you find out" It's like reading a text book, I mean, you have to go research what you are looking for and then go read and it and that's just, that's.. you can americanize some things, but you can put a little note... there is a lot of blank space at the bottom of the page you can put stuff on . You know.. 13:18:45 <> D: Sound effects I usually don't mind in manga... but I like... for stuff like Lucky Star, they have the big book and it has explain everything like all the (gun?) references and stuff. G: Well, Lucky Star didn't make sense anyway. D: Well talk to a Japanese person 13:18:52 <> K: I think uh... actually, you guys have some good questions... we'd like to take some of those. 13:19:39 <> Q: First, I'd like to commend Funimation and dattebayo... dattebayo for dropping Naruto and FUNimation for doing Shikabane Hime, Fullmetal Alchemist, ?? and so and so. My question is this, what about simuldubs like Kurokami, which came out dubbed at the exact same time, or within hours of the Japanese translation. Do you think that there is a market for that and can be pushed also. 13:19:47 <> K: I can speak to that, actually, that was my company that did the translation for that... actually, I personally translated that show. 13:20:02 <> Simuldubs do not make sense. They should not be done unless you have a major TV contract in place. That's... there's really, they don't make the money back. The production process is insane. 13:20:05 <> I would say it's not really viable for most shows... unless you can get it on a Cartoon Network. 13:20:18 <> If you can get a simuldub of naruto and you can get it on TV, that might be worth persuing... but for most shows... 13:20:21 <> on the internet, they will never make their money back. That's the reality of it. 13:20:26 <> And you are not going to... you could do a better job if you did the regular production cycle as opposed to trying to rush it and... do an episode of a dub a week. It's a lot of work. 13:20:40 <> G: Well another big problem is... are they even giving you guys, like the full pro tools tracks... for like for the audio? You can actually take out the Japanese dialogue and put your own... 13:20:46 <> S: Generally, they give you the M&Es, Music and Effects, or mix the two tracks and... 13:21:00 <> You know, their engineers are great but it's not their top priority. They got a lot of stuff to do and making M&Es for some other country isn't not number one. It's not the most mindblowing audio. 13:21:03 <> So yea, you wouldn't... the mixes... it's very difficult to mix well when you only have M&Es 13:21:13 <> Very few people can do it well, NYAV post does a good one 13:21:16 <> G: If somebody gives you a mixdown, it's already mastered... it's aready everything else. And you can't like do anything with it. Any mastering engineer will tell you, you give me a two track mixdown, and you put a compressor on 'em, I'm gonna punch you in the face. It just sounds horrible. 13:21:39 <> And the Japanese... Until the Japanese listen to you guys and they give you the timecode track and they give you the full pro tools file, it's going to sound like crap. 13:21:48 <> L: (inaudible) In our contracts, we ask for all of the materials and then we have audio engineers. 13:22:10 <> if we have a 5.1, we'll open the 5.1 and then they'll look and see... and then sometimes on the dub side, if someone's pitch is a bit high with the music and the effects overlap, they can tone down the wave. They do make it... 13:22:33 <> S: Your engineers can mess with it a little bit, but I'm telling you, you are not getting the real split audio .... the only thing ive ever gotten everything, like everything, was voltron. Period. G: They gave you that whole tape. S: It was on 24 track tape, a metal tape. Because there was no dubbing studios then so they did it in a recording studio and the tape was mystic and everything weighed like 20 lbs. 2 or 3 tapes per episode are a lot of fun to move around. But they... 13:22:51 <> We have produced movies in Japan, I mean we have paid for the movie. We are the producer. All the money is ours, everything. And we have trouble getting the (??) 13:23:13 <> G: That's because when you do it in a studio, the studio holds the tap for you. S: The company you are dealing with is a production company and they hire people to produce things and to work. And then they hire other people. And then, who knows what actually, whose (??) machine it's actually on. It's someone's mom's house. K: Sorry, we geeked out there for a minute. That tends to happen. Next question please. 13:24:01 <> Q: I'm a fansubber, but I fansub Japanese dramas. But in our community, the Japanese drama community as fansubbers, we have an issue with streaming sites... like, we are locking down our fansubs and we want to know, from the Jdrama community, how does that affect you as fansubbers and affect you on the industry side of... taking your fansubs, throwing them on stream sites, and then basically having the streaming sites tell you "screw you, fans have the right to watch fansubs however the way they like it" because our issue is dramacrazy, animecrazy, they take our fansubs and they literally ban us fansubbers and destroy our work. 13:24:18 <> G: That's a big problem. Like, him and I were talking the other night and I was talking to some other fansubbers. We think fansubbing will go to what the drama community does, you just release scripts. You don't give them the file, you release the script, and that way you cut down... because these guys are lazy. 13:24:26 <> These guys will steal fansubs and then put them out. They want your versionn. They want the video and everything so they can pop it up there. Cause I see up there, and I see the little (?) that say "Fuck you for putting this on your site and selling it." It's still on there. 13:24:29 <> These people don't care at all. They are charging the $1.95/day to whoever in Singapore is buying it. 13:24:34 <> And it works out perfectly for them... 13:24:40 <> So if you're giving them the full source with the sync and everything to it, you are giving them a gold mine, they don't have to do anything. Of course they are going to ban you because you are going to go on their site and make little comments "I hate you guys. Take my thing off your site. " 13:24:57 <> I: Yea, I know we've... I said it last year and I'll say it again this year, but dattebayo hates that. 13:25:04 <> and we've continued to pull our subs off of youtube and pull it off any other streaming site we can find. You know, we have a person who is working almost exclusively on that. 13:25:10 <> Q: But how do you take it off, cause I (??) G: How do you take it off? Q: Yea because, it's trouble for us, we don't own the legal rights. 13:25:28 <> G: You don't take it off... there is an instance I went to fansubtv, you know, the fansubtv one. I told them to take down files by a group, they told me to fuck myself. You can't take it down. What are you going to do? I'm going to report you to the police. Well, I'm doing this illegally in the first place. 13:25:41 <> I: A least for us, it's a whole lot of social engineering... You call the people, you talk to them nicely, you find out who runs the site, you start to talk to people in their departments, and then they start to understand what you are doing. 13:25:50 <> You can't just go on and say "Oh you have to take down my stuff because, you know, you suck." But.. G: Dude, it's called fansubtv, they should know what the hell they are doing. I: You get more bees with honey. 13:26:11 <> L: Yea, on our side, so many people and this was on my notes... it's kinda like, I imagine the old fansub groups, it's like all these streaming sites... 13:26:25 <> They just are like, oh, i find megaupload, oh, well here's a link to the torrent, oh, I uploaded, here's a link to the stream. They don't care which group it is. And then sometimes on some of the old stuff is, they mix like fansub with our stuff. So it's like a mix. 13:26:41 <> On our side, since we have the rights to the shows, we send to their ISP. It's like Hey, take it down. 13:26:45 <> I'm one of the people that is in legal too so hi everybody. 13:26:56 <> And so, you know, a lot of it is, it's like we have the DMCA which is like cut and boring, but in the beginning, we say here's why, here's what it is, if you have a question just chat with us 13:27:01 <> and then some of the sites like you are mentioning... 13:27:13 <> they say no, and so we go directly to the ISP... thing is with ISP, there are a lot of them, so they go to another ISP, they hop to another ISP. 13:27:14 <> And then for us, like, we do google ad words. 13:27:16 <> And we just, we have our mediaplanner has a huge ban list G: yea, you rattled it off last year 13:27:21 <> L: we don't support them either... take them down, don't support them Q: K: I think we should move on 13:27:40 <> Q: I just want to ask the industry, do you guys consider try to ask for licensing by language instead of region. 13:27:57 <> L: A lot of the languages, we are, you know, it's just english. I mean, there is like when I mentioned Panini in Europe. They're doing multi-language. This is going to be the trend. 13:28:00 <> There are going to be new companies popping up that will do in a lot of languages. So, it's a trend that's going to be (??). 13:28:11 <> K: One of the biggest questions that I get from the Japanese is, that's great, you know, what you do, can you do other languages? Can you do French, can you do Spanish, can you do German, can you do whatever? It's.. that's going to be the future. 13:28:14 <> S: It's a tricky tricky problem because there is still a lot of hiccups legally. For example, I want to do french. Well, is that Canadian or is that France. I want to do Spanish, okay. Is that South America or is that Spain? Turn's out that they are not on the same (??) 13:28:40 <> L: And with Spanish, it's like, well, what dialect. S: (??) G: I don't think you can ever use high school spanish (??) S: That's it's own dialect. 13:28:58 <> Q: Alright, this isn't a really big earth shattering question, I know people got bad questions, but you went and told how you like to make sure the subs are as less visible as possible.. except Karaoke. 13:29:06 <> G: Karaoke is not subtitling, it is a bastardization on screen... (??) 13:29:17 <> I'm a typesetter and I know when I did this crap. It is molesting a font. Q: dattebayo is still releasing shippuden openings and endings G: Oh, no no. Don't get me wrong, you know what I've said. Typsetters love to do karaoke. It has nothing to do with subtitling though. I mean, this guy made the automation program for it, he'll tell you it all. It's really fun. 13:29:34 <> Q: I was trying to say how completely awesome it is sometimes, but it's just complete... 13:29:58 <> G: It doesn't belong on the video is the thing. If you want to make a music video, if you want to make karaoke, and like do something where it's visual and cool, great. Get if off the damn anime though. Don't put it on there. You are subtitling. Subtitles should be readable. That's all their supposed to do. You are supposed to read them and you are supposed to know what's going on. J: I like comparing karaoke to the intros software creators, game creators make. K: It's just showing off man. G: Pretty much. 13:30:24 <> Q: My question is for the industry members. With the act that you have been getting some brand news series and doing simulcasts, I mean, for the fact that I work a little doing DVD inventory for one of the retailers, we always get questions about like this new show, like do you guys have it on DVD yet... 13:30:25 <> and it's like, it's licensed but not out yet 13:30:39 <> could we possibly see a trend of where, since you guys are getting these brand news shows, being able to simulcast reduce the time to get a release to DVD 13:30:47 <> L: Yea uh, for us, now that we are switching to the 13 ep 2 sets 13:30:55 <> You know the standard term is like 4 episodes every 6-8 weeks, so it takes like a year to watch the series. 13:31:07 <> Now what we do is 13 episodes, 6-8 weeks, 13 more, so it's like... and then with the 13 episodes, you can do a longer casting and directing and all that. 13:31:10 <> instead of doing 4-8 ep chunks, you can do 13ep chunks 13:31:29 <> the problem is, whenever a series releases in japan, whenever it hits the retailer in japan, that usually about when you get the DVD masters from them. and so that's the wait 13:31:41 <> G: You mean the 1 episode per DVD that is (??) L: So you know, that's the major wait, is waiting for those. 13:32:00 <> So if you had a preference, I want to buy this on DVD, and would you rather choose the... what you saw on TV or would you rather wait for them to reclean it for DVD. I would wait and watch that instead. ?: And they probably want the less censored on in some cases too. 13:32:11 <> S: Usually Japan is pretty cool with simultaneous dvd releases, in Japan and America. So that's... they've been pretty friendly, we've done a bunch of those. Kite Liberator being our last one... and we've also done a bunch of live action ones. 13:32:17 <> And usually they are open to talking about that, i think it's probably easier than simulcasting. 13:32:32 <> The one issues is that, right now in american, what sells are half season or full season boxsets, so that makes it a little more difficult, because then you got... wait until the dvd release, their last DVD release, before you can release. 13:32:51 <> D: Also, when you have longer sets, just think about all the... just a lot of practical things, like the QC'ing and stuff. So if there are multiple audio tracks, all of those have to be watched multiple times... and that's a lot of man hours and i like to have an 8 hour work day. K: Yea right. ?: What's that? What's that? G: Are you salaried? L: What's vacation? 13:32:59 <> D: Also, we're always working on multiple projects at the same time. So it's not like, oh, we just licensed Gaogaigar, that's the only only thing we're going to be working on until it's out. 13:33:09 <> We have lots of projects that we are doing on all the time. 13:33:23 <> Q: For the fansubbers, I watch anime every week and I download stuff every week. How hard do you guys have to work each week to get stuff out? Cause I watch dattebayo's bleach and I know it comes out on Monday and you guys usually get it out by Tuesday night around nine o'clock. 13:33:32 <> How hard do you guys have to work to get that out? It seems like you'd have to rush rush rush to get it out. 13:33:45 <> I: Honestly, nowadays, I don't really do too much on that, but I mean, the process is nice and streamlined... and it's really... by now it's so smooth. 13:33:46 <> G: Hey you got it special anyways. Don't all you guys like live in the same area? 13:34:01 <> I: Yea, but, it doesn't make any difference anymore. We used to actually gather everyone in a place and do it. Now we don't do that anymore, it's all done... actually most of it's done by one person who sits right there. 13:34:06 <> So it's like, it's really nice and easy. We got the process so locked down now that's it's really... 13:34:11 <> G: When a fansubber wants to do something fast, they can. 13:34:27 <> J: I know some of the people in eclipse and they are also known for pretty fast release. And they simply use the fact that they are in different times zones. So they wake up at the right time and the part before them are done. 13:34:31 <> G: Well, I'm not even going to play up on that one cause I know people who will stay all night when something comes out... and just fansub it to death cause that's like their thing. 13:34:44 <> But like the biggest delay you will ever see in fansubbing is a video game... mainly an MMORPG... because someone will be like "I'm doing it right now" *Click, click, click*... And that will kill a series. 13:34:49 <> Q: So how many hours does it usually take you guys to finish a...? G: Depends what job it is... and what show it is. 13:34:52 <> I: The whole show? I dunno... We could probably do it in 5 hours if we got everyone really lined up right... 13:35:01 <> G: The only one task that I know that can always be done in about the same amount of time period is timing. Timing always generally takes the same amount of time because generally the episode is only so long. 13:35:15 <> But with translation, with how many lines there are... typesetting, how many signs there are... editing, how poor the english of the translatior is... so on and so forth. Like it can vary a lot... but with something like Bleach... come on, they're like kung pow, action...and they are saying like attack move names and crap and then they go I hate you, no I love you... It doesn't matter because it's not really that hard stuff. K: I think we'll take one or two more questions then we will need to wrap it up. Or I guess we can do three since there is like three people. 13:35:43 <> Q: This is for the industry and fansubbers... basically, shows by studio Shaft and also something like Saki by Gonzo use a lot of different subtitles and use different references all over the place. 13:35:51 <> I know you could say you use different subtitle tracks. 13:35:55 <> I know FUNimation had Negima!? from studio Shaft and they did they did the little log... the notes at the end of the DVD which were helpful for some of the references. 13:36:02 <> How do you normally go about shows like this? I know that they can be very complicated. 13:36:08 <> K: Saki... we're actually... that's... actually, my company does Saki... 13:36:39 <> Like actually, yea, this morning, I was putting in a list this long from my QC'r of changes to be made... that is a very unique show. It needs a booklet... honestly it needs a book to go out with that show for the references... I mean for the mahjong terminology... there are some really... like just obscure, obscure terminology in there that the only people who may know are Japanese otaku who love the Saki manga and play Mahjong. 13:36:47 <> And the problem is... then they have these terms that have no translation... like nobody literally in the history of the world has ever translated these terms. 13:36:55 <> So it's like... you know, you go with... there is chinese mahjong and they have terms. And then you can try and shoehorn that in. 13:37:11 <> But it's really... like actually one of the regrets on that show, cause we really didn't know this going in.... I wish we just kinda kept everything in just the romaji japanese for some of these terms because it might be easier to... to... 13:37:11 <> I guess... it won't make sense to anybody... but neither does like... I think once there was like... the... it's actually in today's episode. It's something like "The Bottom of the sea" that's the... that's a mahjong move. Now, what does that mean? You know... yea so... 13:37:38 <> G: If people are playing Texas-Holdem poker and you are watching on ESPN, do you really need everything explained of what they are doing? You don't need special names for it. Like, if you just give them the special name, that's all that matters. I mean super robot mega-attack this doesn't need to be explained. 13:37:53 <> I had to do the karaoke for one... a show like that... it was that Haruhuni or whatever... the really weird one that is like some 2chan parody thing... K: Oh the flash video or something... 13:38:04 <> G: Yea, I don't know what it was, some group made me do it. I dunno, but this thing had nothing but obscure references... in the beginning. The entire song is nothing but obscure references... the guy's like... should we put notes in there. I'm like dude, you already want to put a karaoke in there. Now you want to put notes in there as well. And there is credits on this thing... where are the characters going to be? 13:38:41 <> Q: My question is mostly for the industry. And it goes in the vain of arguing about what we whether we like page long notes or nothing at all and just the subtitles being as inocuous as possible. There is so much you can already leverage for that with say multiple DVD tracks, what is your guys opinion on say having a fansub style track with a wall of text explaining every noun that sounds even remotely japanese and then a english track that's just... you know, you don't even notice the subtitles after a few minutes. Because... as you can tell just from the audience reaction, there is just a lot of people in both camps who like both. 13:38:59 <> S: I guess it would be the same thing as watching a movie and then being like "Hey, who wants to watch it again with the commentary on?" 13:39:04 <> Cause I don't even think... for the people who really like that kind of thing, it would be watchable... if you went... took it too far... for a lot of the shows anyway. Q: Yea, it's easy to go too far but even just some people keep the name order in the Japanese order and then have your suffixes and a couple of special mahjong terms explained. G: That's like a science class slide show. It kills me. 13:39:27 <> S: But remember, when it comes to the japanese names and japanese order and the san's and sama's... they are all still there, just listen. 13:39:27 <> G: Well I mean, what it really comes down to, does it need to be explained... 13:39:41 <> Like when you are watching TV, when you are watching movies in a theater, when you are doinng this, when you are doing that, they do not have that because it's part of the mystique. That's what the artist wanted. They want it to sound like something foreign, that you didn't know. Q: I agree with you. But many people... G: They want you to look at it and go "That's cool. Maybe I should go investigate it. If you really care about it... 13:39:50 <> if you are downloading stuff or watching steaming, you have google, you can find out what it is. It's... there is really no point in it. 13:39:54 <> If you want the commentary, these guys can probably put commentary stuff. It might be in Japanese, it won't be our fault. 13:40:01 <> D: I think, again, I'd rather read a book with references pointed out instead of checking... G: Yes! D: watching it again just incase there are subtitles I missed. S: To be honest, when I'm watching a show and when I'm done, I usually go to wikipedia and read the article. K: So this is the last question. 13:40:23 <> Q: Other than the simulcasting, what has changed in the industry and fansubbing since the last panel? 13:40:35 <> G: I don't think anything changed in fansubbing. I think it's all still the same. 13:40:41 <> I: I think streaming has had a tremendous effect on fansubbing actually. G: No, I just mean fansubbing itself hasn't changed at all. It's still the same crap. I: It's still the same crap, it's still the same drama... but I mean... there have been some changes and I don't know how extreme they are. 13:40:45 <> Fansub changes continuously anyways, so it's kinda tought to attribute anything to anything. 13:40:47 <> But it could be... I dunno. 13:40:53 <> G: Fansub just follows fads 13:40:58 <> It's whatever the latest fad is, they are going to be doing. 13:41:06 <> But like, the technique, or the technical aspect of it really hasn't changed since the advent of typesetting really. ?: Softsubs... G: Well, like the only people looking at hardsubs are the fans downloading. Fansubbers have been watching softsubs forever, I'm sorry. But like, I never watch the encode versions. K: You guys have anything you want to add to that? 13:41:30 <> L: Yea, the one thing is... like... that to dattebayo's credit was awesome that you know, that ya'll dropped (Naruto)... the right decision. It's just that I wish that other groups would follow your lead for Fullmetal Alchemist because.... 13:41:32 <> I sent nice friendly emails, "Hi, here it is, here is the DMCA" 13:41:39 <> G: Aren't you guys getting that out on the second day or something? L: Huh? G: Aren't you guys getting that out like a day later? ?/L: 4 days 13:41:45 <> G: You people can't wait 4 days. 13:41:49 <> OMG, I need it right now, can't you just sleep for 4 days? 13:42:03 <> L: It's just because like, it's a commercial form. We have it online, just watch an ad, it goes back to aniplex, the creators. 13:42:06 <> It's kinda like... pretend like, you know, it's like PBS 13:42:13 <> You have a ton of people watching it and then you have a lot of people that support it. It's like support the artform because you want the artform to keep going. 13:42:23 <> That's basically it. Like, yes, there's gonna be a ton of people that watch this that will never pay for it. 13:42:27 <> But we need those people, we need more people that will watch the stream, watch the commercial, and buy the DVDs. 13:42:43 <> S: That's right. If you don't support us, then in a couple years, then we're going to interrupting the streaming anime for pledge week. 13:42:48 <> L: And also, one thing that wasn't covered on, we're streaming dubs. 13:43:02 <> If you look on youtube on Ouran, the Ouran, same day, we launched ouran, right now Ouran dub is 140k views. Sub is 40k. Granted, the subtitle has been on a lot. 13:43:05 <> But we're using online to supplement the digital... to supplement our lost DVD revenue. 13:43:17 <> And so I know that like, there have was some releases currently that just dub... I mean subtitle only and (???) online are like "wth, where is my dub" 13:43:24 <> and so, I know I'm talking to the sub crowd here, but there's also fandom with the dub and we're using online and everything to supplement that revenue. 13:43:41 <> G: One thing that I do want to bring up even through Crunchyroll is not here, and this really, as a fansubber, makes me mad. There is this group called Horriblesubs, who rips subs off of Crunchyroll and then puts them on their own videos. I mean really, really... that's... you are not even a fansub group. You need to just not do that. ?: They are trolls.. 13:43:50 <> They are not even trolls... I mean are they trolling themselves? I mean what's going on? 13:44:03 <> K: You know what I found out they were actually doing... cause they use a lot of our subtitles, is what they would do is they would cleverly go into the scripts before they would make their video and they would change lines around and they would change words. 13:44:10 <> And then I was reading on these review sites, you know, because I wanted to see how people were recieving our translations. And they say "OMG, there's errors here, errors here, errors here." They were really trying to screw... I guess Crunchyroll. 13:44:25 <> G: You know what the messed up part is... they're like " I saw the horrible subs version and it was different. I guess your translation is wrong. " It's like... are you guys fucking morons? K: People remember the first version they saw. And if they don't speak Japanese, that's the correct translation. G: You could write anything in the script you want to. Unless you write parody at the top, people won't k now the difference. K: Lance is going to put a comment in on that. G: You know killshok is going to come and get you for that one. 13:44:47 <> K: I think i just want to say any closing comments? Anything anyone wants to add? And then I think we're just going to wrap it up because we're already overtime. G: I think all these other people in the back are getting mad at us. K: I dunno what the next panel is... G: Ah, everybody looked. 13:45:17 <> L: Yea, just finally, it's like... (??) to watch it online, just think of that PBS stuff... you know, you are going to watch a lot of titles. But if you really love the titles that you like, buy the DVD, buy the merchandise, watch it on a like a streaming site, check out the dub. 13:45:20 <> It's just that, we know that you use fansubs to test the market cause I mean... 13:45:31 <> Let's face it, tv in america, you don't get to see a lot of the stuff. I mean we're trying to do that with FUN channel. Where you know, we're now on Comcast on Demand, Verizon is growing, we're trying to grow that. 13:45:46 <> Hopefully in like 5 years, you'll be able to... across the country... and hopefully we'll do subs on there as well... and then online just changes. 13:45:47 <> So just support the commercial side as well. Then everyone's happy. 13:45:59 <> S: And if you can't support the commercial(??) side , find a way to show your support. 13:46:21 <> At least give a lot of good feedback on websites that are doing the right thing. Give bad feedback to websites that are doing the bad thing. Call up Cartoon network and tell them moribito is awesome and to put more anime on... because we don't want to completely disappear from the television world either. K: Everyone should when they get home... They have a homework assignment to write Cartoon Network an email supporting anime. 13:46:25 <> G: I do have one question before we close. Do any of you have any plans for doing studio 4c stuff because nobody really licensed their stuff. S: You mean like tweeny witches? (??) G: Genius party, genius party 2, all the movies, all the really really cool movies by really cool directors that never seems to make it but I can look at loli witches all day long if i really want to. I'd like to actually see some anime instead of some fanservice for once. ?: We'll work on it. 13:46:54 <> K: Thank you for coming
Notes: None