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minakichan





PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:05 am Reply with quote
"My question to you is, why would you watch a fansub rather than our simulcast?"

No low stream speeds, ugly subs, and, in some cases, worse translations (I think no one can argue with me in certain cases, like Haruhi-chan).

I'm starting to shift over to simulcasts but it's still not the most desirable action. Can't companies monetize fansubs-- actually partner with subbers to stick ads with the file and then hand over the revenue? There actually ARE fansubbers who would be more than willing to comply with this.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1684
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:31 am Reply with quote
minakichan wrote:
Can't companies monetize fansubs-- actually partner with subbers to stick ads with the file and then hand over the revenue? There actually ARE fansubbers who would be more than willing to comply with this.


No, not really. Vuze (remember them?) tried to sell ads attached to downloadable video and failed miserably. There's no market for online advertising where the number of views can't be tracked. (Besides, wouldn't you just skip past the ads?)

That said, there's quite a few fansubbers "going pro" these days. No one can argue against years of experience speed-subbing.
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Ai no Kareshi



Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 561
Location: South Africa
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:38 am Reply with quote
A very interesting discussion. Thank you, girls.

Reasons I prefer fansubs to simulcasts
1. I don't live in the US.
2. Waiting for the stream to buffer is a pain.
3. At the price of bandwidth in my country, I'd much rather have the video file on my disk for my investment.


Though I realize that it's probably not practical, I'm much more keen on the idea of companies monetizing fansubs myself.
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:40 am Reply with quote
I appreciate FUNi's work to an extent, their subs are good and they're able to get some money out of streaming, but it's still not for me. I'd prefer an HD encode with horrendous subs over immaculate subs in a lower quality online stream. I tried watching FUNi's upload of Phantom, and it ended up being impossible because I was already used to the show being in a bigger resolution. When you say you're cutting into fansubs, it's not like you hurting them. In fact, it does nothing. The "e-peen" of fansubbers as it's called is still satisfied by the people who will still pursue that option, and that's why fansubbing probably won't go away fro a while. There's no way to please everybody here.

I guess because of the past few years a lot of downloads have gotten to used to h.264 mkvs, soft subs, and now HD encodes. You'll get a lot of people to switch over who aren't as technologically savvy or caring, or maybe they have bad computers or slow internet. Though many people have optimal situations for both and see the legal manner as obsolete and a huge step down. I've seen the supposed "720p" subs CrunchyRoll has. Sure it may be 720 vertical pixels, but the framerate and bitrate sure don't seem to match up. Really the only desirable streaming I've seen has been on YouTube. Here's an example (click HD):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMDnTE6_wkg&translated=1

Get whole shows uploaded in that quality with some subs, and you'll see even people like myself finding less reason for fansubs (for the licensed shows that is. Also, I understand that example is from a BluRay, but it's close enough). But it still seems like it's years away, and not even show I want to see each season can be brought over legally fast enough. As for the thing about "fancy fonts" or karaoke, it's stupid. We just don't want blocky yellow subtitles half-way up the screen. A clean white arial font with thick black borders is probably the best.

Why I watch fansubs is because of how easy they are to obtain and how fast they come out. Then there's also the collecting element that streams don't afford you, unless you use some script that allows you to rip it, like Greasemonkey scripts. There's also the idea that shows might never come to America, or that it's nice to be caught up with the Japanese otaku.


Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Tue May 05, 2009 1:49 am; edited 3 times in total
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Dante80



Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 218
Location: Athens Greece
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:42 am Reply with quote
Quote:
That said, there's quite a few fansubbers "going pro" these days. No one can argue against years of experience speed-subbing.


QFT. And I believe the industry needs more of them...^^

Quote:
My question to you is, why would you watch a fansub rather than our simulcast?


I'll change the question to "what should your simulcast have to make me prefer it"

If I could watch your simulcast (non R1 viewer here), it would go down to the TL quality and overall effort in producing a good result. That latter means better typesetting and fonts (this time there are no DVD limitations, no TV technology limitations), good streaming quality (you cannot catch HDTV fansubs at image Q, but you can try your dandiest to do so), cultural notes embedded in the stream, or hyperlinked to it. You can do all of the above easily, provided a)you care and b)you get access to the media some 12hours prior to the release. Good job, keep at it...^^
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LordRedhand



Joined: 04 Feb 2009
Posts: 1472
Location: Middle of Nowhere, Indiana
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:48 am Reply with quote
Question on the cultural notes, those are normally extras and are not even on the Japanese release of the series on television so why should speed streaming have them? I mean in all seriousness we have this amazing tool that can get us a lot of information quickly that if you find yourself with the desire to research further (like understanding the history of "x" building, and why it's important) yourself and this wonderful tool you ask? The internet! Have fun.

Also I watch anime to be entertained, learning about another culture is really on the backburner for me personally and saying "I learn about Japanese Culture through anime!" is saying you learned about Indiana culture through the "Hoosiers" movie, it just doesn't hold up.
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Dante80



Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 218
Location: Athens Greece
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:52 am Reply with quote
LordRedhand wrote:
Question on the cultural notes, those are normally extras and are not even on the Japanese release of the series on television so why should speed streaming have them? I mean in all seriousness we have this amazing tool that can get us a lot of information quickly that if you find yourself with the desire to research further (like understanding the history of "x" building, and why it's important) yourself and this wonderful tool you ask? The internet! Have fun.


Well frankly speaking, a stream with extras is better from a stream without them. Some don't care about extras, some don't want extras at all. Some want them. I'd love to see a company paying more attention to them in their works...
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:54 am Reply with quote
LordRedhand wrote:
Also I watch anime to be entertained, learning about another culture is really on the backburner for me personally and saying "I learn about Japanese Culture through anime!" is saying you learned about Indiana culture through the "Hoosiers" movie, it just doesn't hold up.


I think if you watch about a good 10 days straight of programming about life in different parts of Indiana, past and present, you might get a good idea about life, culture, and the people that lived and still live there. You'll understand how a lot of them act, react, and what their moral standings and ethics seem to be. Your analogy only works if you compare Hoosiers to one anime movie, like Whisper of the Heart. I think if you watch enough variety, you can gain a huge understanding of what Japanese society might be like.
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LordRedhand



Joined: 04 Feb 2009
Posts: 1472
Location: Middle of Nowhere, Indiana
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 1:57 am Reply with quote
But see then what is left to put on a DVD if they give you everything upfront? Got to have something there and for this desire of speed, it would also be a slow down in the process as that would take time to research, unless of course the distributor is working months in advance of the actual episode airing, which is a big stretch right now. So I'd rather have them focus on speed now as that truly is the one major thing that is being demanded over anything else.

edit for other post

Ah but see here is the rub, name a another series set in Indiana... not many I can tell you, but the thing is even with 10 years of anime viewing you are not learning a lot about a culture, your watching an entertainment form that is very stylized, very formal in language, and has characters with varying degrees of ethics and values (so for example Scryed vs. DeathNote vs. Tenchi vs. School Rumble they are all different and don't paint the same picture.)

So for a list of series set in Indiana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Television_shows_set_in_Indiana


Last edited by LordRedhand on Tue May 05, 2009 2:05 am; edited 2 times in total
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Dante80



Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 218
Location: Athens Greece
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:03 am Reply with quote
LordRedhand wrote:
But see then what is left to put on a DVD if they give you everything upfront? Got to have something there and for this desire of speed, it would also be a slow down in the process as that would take time to research, unless of course the distributor is working months in advance of the actual episode airing, which is a big stretch right now.


Not really, its very easy to find and make cultural notes for an anime episode. Fansubbers do it all the time, and in record time (and they are amateurs)...Also about the DVDs, what a collector wants from them is not cultural notes and clean OPs, but actual extras like making of, interviews with the creator/cast, commentaries, a dub track etc.
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:05 am Reply with quote
Dante80 wrote:
LordRedhand wrote:
But see then what is left to put on a DVD if they give you everything upfront? Got to have something there and for this desire of speed, it would also be a slow down in the process as that would take time to research, unless of course the distributor is working months in advance of the actual episode airing, which is a big stretch right now.


Not really, its very easy to find and make cultural notes for an anime episode. Fansubbers do it all the time, and in record time (and they are amateurs)...Also about the DVDs, what a collector wants from them is not cultural notes and clean OPs, but actual extras like making of, interviews with the creator/cast, commentaries, a dub track etc.


Not to mention physical extras. Those have to be the best way to entice some people to buy DVDs. It's worked on Emma and Aria even without the presence of a dub; it's something that just can't be replicated in a digital download.
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yoshi1277



Joined: 13 Nov 2008
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:06 am Reply with quote
minakichan wrote:
"My question to you is, why would you watch a fansub rather than our simulcast?"

No low stream speeds, ugly subs, and, in some cases, worse translations (I think no one can argue with me in certain cases, like Haruhi-chan).

In Funimation's case, it's because watching shows like Phantom and Fullmetal Alchemist on their website makes waterboarding look like a fun activity. Why should I wait hours for FLASH video to download when I can download a fansub in minutes?

Case in point, I started watching Phantom on the Funi website beginning episode 3 (ep 1 & 2 were BT'd fansubs). I could download a fansub in 10-15 minutes, but I had to let episode 3 sit in a browser window for 3 hours just to get the episode to completely download. I was really getting in to Phantom as a series, but I've considered not watching anymore because of the hassle of getting the content "legally" from Funimation.

To be fair, I've been watching Naruto and Shangri-la on Crunchyroll recently and although there is room for improvement (video/translation quality), the download speed is great (compared to Funimation anyway, since I can watch an episode in realtime without "buffering" messages every 2 seconds). So I have no issues visiting a site to get content legally, but if you want more people to do so the big issues need to be fixed first.

Personally, until Funimation decides to start fixing the problems with their video site, I'll go with alternative means of getting the shows I like. Let the fansubbers do their thing for now. Once you get your shit together in terms of content distribution, then shut them down.


Last edited by yoshi1277 on Tue May 05, 2009 2:11 am; edited 1 time in total
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Tofusensei



Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 365
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:07 am Reply with quote
Haha, "Infringement Specialist" is an awesome title.

But you cut the article out just when it gets to the juicy stuff!
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LordRedhand



Joined: 04 Feb 2009
Posts: 1472
Location: Middle of Nowhere, Indiana
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:09 am Reply with quote
But from what I understand the general wants is a day 1 global release of anime as the general fansubber wants, so how can adding work that doesn't achieve that help? Again they would have to have the scripts much earlier to research the information that would show up an would also have to be approved, like the sub script and be a separate thing.

My brother bought Emma and it was that he was intersted and hadn't seen it before. Seriously I think anime fans want it both ways with free streams and cheap DVDS something is going to give, and the way things are heading it maybe a rise of DVD costs
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Tamaria



Joined: 21 Oct 2007
Posts: 1512
Location: De Achterhoek
PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:12 am Reply with quote
When "fair use" came up I excepted a little Yu-Gi-Oh abridged discussion. I'm disappointed.
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