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Hey, Answerman! - Futile Devices


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Penguin_Factory



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 732
Location: Ireland
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 10:09 am Reply with quote
Zarquon wrote:

What has been lacking, to my mind, has been an effort to really sell anime into the American (or into other overseas) markets. By that I mean to seriously consider how to get every penny they can for the demand that there is here. Streaming and ala carte buying is a good start but its not the entire answer.

[....]

Other people in this thread have been talking about how hard it is to get DVD releases into the US. Contrast that with how quickly television show DVDs hit stores in the US. Even ones from marginal shows. Just as with amine there are people who like to collect, thats a market that streaming alone just won't reach. Sure you can say "go buy the DVD in a year", but I don't see that an industry like the anime industry has ONLY that option.

I am not trying to defend the fansubbers, far from it. What gets me annoyed is watching a company come down like the hammer of god on some inscrupulous nerds when they spend the rest of the time dragging their feet and clinging to outdated business models.

I guess what I am really getting at is how I feel like they are saying that they can't compete with the fansubbers so it is they who must be destroyed. They can compete I think, and the key is catering to the urge to collect rather than just the urge to see.


I might be misunderstanding you here, but I feel like you're contradicting yourself. How would a company compete with fansubbers by appealing to the collector audience? Fansubs are downloaded by people who want their anime right away, as soon as it airs in Japan, whereas collectors want a DVD or box set to put on the shelf. You can't fulfil both those desires simultaneously.

You also mentioned outdated business models. But the business model you appear to be advocating (a collector-oriented physical media release) is the outdated model. Anime companies tried it and it ultimately blew up in their faces. We obviously still have DVDs and Blu-Rays coming out, but that strategy is never going to be as successful as it once was.
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Genet



Joined: 05 Jun 2009
Posts: 261
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 10:11 am Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:
Quote:
We have Crunchyroll, simulcasting, iTunes, Blu Rays, tons of legal options, many of which are either free or cost a pittance, that people here in the US can use instead of torrenting a video file that requires a bunch of lousy video codecs.


Thats all and good, but what about Manga? I ain't giddy about paying a load of money to some guy in Japan on the off-chance some zealous Customs Agent thinks I either violated some obscure law a/or duty that I have to pay.


This strikes me as not only alarmist, but flat-out lazy. Really? "Violated some obscure law"? Unless you're importing hardcore lolicon or pornography, they're not going to seize your K-ON or Naruto or whatever it is you're importing. To me that sounds like some BS excuse so you can justify pirating anything under the pretense of "BUT THEY MIGHT ARREST ME ST00PID LAW!!11one"


Quote:
I don't feel that same sentiment. One manga company in particular I pretty much dumped all my manga with their brand on it because they decided to do takedowns of fanscans of titles I was collecting.

Yes, I use Fanscans to "Preview" manga and buy them in English when they come out if I liked it. But due to them taking it down, I felt that my duty to them in being an honest customer had lapsed.

So to this company, I hope you can survive my lack of business for 5 of your titles. If your release schedule wasn't crap as well.


B'awwww! How dare they take down illegally scanned copies of their books! That's injustice, I say! People who scan English copies of manga are worse than people who scanlate widely-available series.
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vashfanatic



Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 3489
Location: Back stateside
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 10:43 am Reply with quote
Zalis116 wrote:
vashfanatic wrote:
It's not just the yellow. Funimation's release of Baccano! used white all the time... including over the white text of the next episode's title in the previews so you literally could not read the subtitles. Nor did they ever differentiate who was speaking which subtitles when two people were speaking at once... well, it's not like fansubbers subtitle things perfectly by any means, but clearly the technology is out there to do a far greater variety of highly-legible subtitling fonts and colors than in the past. I think a Crunchyroll staffer even brought this up at a table discussion with Funimation, that many companies use technology years behind what is available.
A lot of people on various sites say things like "yellow is old, it makes me feel like I'm watching something from the 1980s", while conveniently ignoring that VHS and many digital fansubs used yellow up until 2003 or so. I'm always confused by that, because it's not like they discovered new colors in 2000 or 2003 or whenever that made yellow "obsolete" or anything. Imo, all the "yellow burns my eyes" talk that you see on various fora is just a smokescreen to justify hating official releases. If DVDs used white text with semi-light/dark blue outlines, people would hate white text with semi-light/dark blue outlines.
I find it interesting that you used my quote here. I actually don't have a problem with yellow, so long as its neat and legible. Actually, I don't have a problem with any color so long as it's neat and legible. My point was that in trying to go with white because I guess that's what fans have been asking for? Funimation in this instance actually made it less legible. Font and color should entirely be based upon whether or not they are easy to read.

And I'm not using that as an excuse to hate official releases. I own Baccano! and love it; that's why I know that the subtitles are screwy in places. I'd just like Funimation to take those issues into consideration in their future.

Oh, and yeah, the whole Japanese honorifics where there shouldn't be bugs me a lot. I compare Funi's treatment of Baccano! to Geneon's treatment of Gankutsuou, where they rendered all the Japanese honorifics into French, and I know which I prefer. Not that it will keep me from getting the official release, it's just, again, something I'd like to see them doing differently in the future.

That said, you know there are going to be "purists" out there who somehow don't believe that honorifics can be translated and if a company does localize them to the setting, they'll be up in arms to. I think in the integrity of translation you should localize, but I know that Funimation is probably faced with trying to please everybody at once.
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Gilles Poitras



Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Posts: 476
Location: Oakland California
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 11:35 am Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
Also, don't forget how long it takes to render CG animation. Even rendering computer farms take awhile just to finish a few seconds of CG animation!


Excellent point. There is a scene in Ghost in the Shell Innocence where a car, so polished it reflects everything, moves down a street at night, a street with lots of neon signs. The entire scene was done by hand as it was faster than rendering it on the computers at George Lucas' facility. Check out the directors commentary for the exact scene.
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writerpatrick



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 670
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:00 pm Reply with quote
Gilles Poitras wrote:
enurtsol wrote:
Also, don't forget how long it takes to render CG animation. Even rendering computer farms take awhile just to finish a few seconds of CG animation!


Excellent point. There is a scene in Ghost in the Shell Innocence where a car, so polished it reflects everything, moves down a street at night, a street with lots of neon signs. The entire scene was done by hand as it was faster than rendering it on the computers at George Lucas' facility. Check out the directors commentary for the exact scene.


It depends upon how much rendering is being asked of the system. Flash takes no time at all, but a CG crowd scene can time quite some time. And when you're dealing with a movie you have to consider not only the current scene but how much time it takes to render other scenes. GitS:I had a lot of CG in it and it's likely the computer resources were tied up enough so that it made more sense to do the car by hand rather than wait for a CG version of it.

Most of the stuff coming out of the US is cheap cartoonish animation that's not likely to demand much processor time. In fact it's because it's so cheap to make that it's become so popular for companies. Even hand-drawn animation today uses a lot of computer assistance.
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angieness



Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 162
Location: Columbus, OH
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:01 pm Reply with quote
On the subtitle font/color debate, one thing to consider is subtitles are typically in that font and yellow to look nice and readable on any tv. You're still going to be able to easily read that text even on the worst tvs as well as the smallest tvs. Fancier fonts and a different color for every character will be difficult to read on some tvs.
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shoddyworksucks



Joined: 28 Jan 2011
Posts: 21
Location: San Diego, CA
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 1:36 pm Reply with quote
Zarquon wrote:



I am not trying to defend the fansubbers, far from it. What gets me annoyed is watching a company come down like the hammer of god on some inscrupulous nerds when they spend the rest of the time dragging their feet and clinging to outdated business models.


I actually believe that much of the industry has tried to change it's ways. Anime companies used to release a show over multiple DVDs with maybe 3-4 episodes on each disk, only to release a series box a year or so later. Companies typically just release the boxes now. Almost every single show used to be dubbed, regardless of how well it was going to sell. Most shows now are sub only unless they expect big sales, or it was already dubbed and is now being re-released. Popular series, like One Piece, the series responsible for this discussion, are simulcast or streamed free right after they come out.

While there are still series or movies (Summer Wars, for example) that experience a long road to U.S. release, the industry does experience a shorter turn-around than it used to. That said, I think the primary issue is the piracy of series like One Piece that ARE easily available through legal streaming sites. I don't take issue with someone pirating a series that hasn't been released in the U.S., but I can't fathom why someone would still watch pirated subs when the legal route is free and easy now. Due to this, the streaming and simulcasting has made a significant impact on Bittorrent numbers.

I do have to agree to an earlier poster that their decision to sue 1337 people is more than coincidence. In fact, it seems downright antagonistic. Why snub your nose at these people? It's the internet; lighting a fire inside a bunch of fanboys due to your not-so-subtle symbolism isn't the best idea.
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asimpson2006



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 3151
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 2:11 pm Reply with quote
angieness wrote:
On the subtitle font/color debate, one thing to consider is subtitles are typically in that font and yellow to look nice and readable on any tv. You're still going to be able to easily read that text even on the worst tvs as well as the smallest tvs. Fancier fonts and a different color for every character will be difficult to read on some tvs.


If I remember correctly, when making DVD's you are limited to what colors can be used for the subtitles. I think I remember Justin saying something about this in an early ANNCast about that.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:41 pm Reply with quote
RestlessOne wrote:
You've just pointed out one of my biggest pet peeves: using honorifics when it makes no sense to use them. Japan? Sure, bring it. Alternate Japan? It's still some kind of Japan, so yeah. Alternate universe with a significant amount of Japanese names/titles? Fine, no harm. Alternate universe wherein everyone has some European name? No thanks. Europe!? Please stop.
Yes, this.

In Marimite, in Utena, in Wandering Son ... they are in a Japanese school. Students address students senior to them, students junior to them and students in their own class differently, and the fact that its done all the time means that the hierarchy is part of the "universal oxygen" of the social setting. There should be a subtitle track with honorifics available ~ and Rightstuf/Nozomi does an excellent job with Marimite, which making subtitle tracks available with and without.

But there is this "demand" I've seen floating in some forums in other sites that every series have honorifics translated, and for something like Baccano or GOSICK, it'd be silly to translate the honorifics. The ones that are significant to the story can and should be conveyed some other way.

GWOtaku wrote:
I have to strongly disagree. I don't think that there are no converts left to be won. I simply take a serious look at the One Piece situation, and this is what I see. I see a deal that, quite frankly, doesn't get better than this outside of even better video quality. Most episodes of this series that are available on DVD get put online. They are showing new episodes within an hour of the Japanese broadcast! This is free to any American with an internet connection.

And yet people steal it. ...
It does seem like many of the converts to be won are not on that side of the bootleg access. Those who are waiting after the simulcast in order to get a torrent download would seem more likely to know that the simulcast is available ~ many of the members who appear in the ANN forums specifically to complain about Funimation's actions listed from a conventional wisdom of reasons why Funimation's simulcast is not acceptable and so why they were forced to resort to torrent downloading of fansubs.

A quite reasonable commercial goal there is to persuade the dedicated torrent file downloaders to find a more discrete source that is not as high profile in the online search engines, so that fewer people will stumble across the downloads without being aware that they are illegally redistributing licensed material. To do that, you'd have to do something to make the story more likely to be carried ~ like suing 1337 torrent distributors of bootlegs.

There are, of course, at the least hundreds and quite possibly thousands of viewers of leech streaming sites who simply do not know ~ they googled for how to watch the show, or just "watch free anime" and clicked around until they found a site that seemed to work. Most of the sites try hard to be indistinguishable from a legit site, and all have some form of forum or chat board where a newbie can "learn" why what is being done at the site is perfectly all right.

It is an open question how to make those unaware leech streaming site viewers aware that for most of the series they watch, higher qualify streams are available that support the original creators.
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kakoishii



Joined: 16 Jul 2008
Posts: 741
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 5:00 pm Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
kakoishii wrote:

It was things like itunes and music subscription services that brought on the forward advancement, and although the anime industry has new streaming services in place there is still more that they could do with a little imagination. It almost feels as though they've given up, thrown their hands up in frustration and while watching the industry shrink to nothing decided they might as well try and make a few bucks on the side by sewing a few kids for downloading one piece, but seriously is this the future? Is this the end all be all save all for anime? I don't think so, but what's scary is that I think a lot of fans do.


What other options? You can already download digitally, you can watch it streaming for free, or you could buy the DVDs. What fansubbers want is for Funimation to give away the product for free which isn't feasible. Would I love to watch every anime series I can? Of course, but I don't have that right nor could anyone make money in that type of situation.

what other options indeed, but just because you can't think of any doesn't mean they don't exist. I personally would like to see more subscription services like crunchyroll offers giving fans an option to purchase a monthly or yearly fee to watch all the anime they want comercial free. Or even if it was with commercials but giving the viewer the option to fastforward through ala tivo or dvr or if they pay. Thinking outside the box even more it would be nice to see funi go on some of their own original ventures that is to say original anime of their own in addition to what they license from overseas. I don't think there's anything wrong with funi incorporating a little more imagination in how to keep their business growing. It's a lot more forward thinking than suing people.
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
Posts: 3085
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 5:28 pm Reply with quote
kakoishii wrote:
Charred Knight wrote:
kakoishii wrote:

It was things like itunes and music subscription services that brought on the forward advancement, and although the anime industry has new streaming services in place there is still more that they could do with a little imagination. It almost feels as though they've given up, thrown their hands up in frustration and while watching the industry shrink to nothing decided they might as well try and make a few bucks on the side by sewing a few kids for downloading one piece, but seriously is this the future? Is this the end all be all save all for anime? I don't think so, but what's scary is that I think a lot of fans do.


What other options? You can already download digitally, you can watch it streaming for free, or you could buy the DVDs. What fansubbers want is for Funimation to give away the product for free which isn't feasible. Would I love to watch every anime series I can? Of course, but I don't have that right nor could anyone make money in that type of situation.

what other options indeed, but just because you can't think of any doesn't mean they don't exist. I personally would like to see more subscription services like crunchyroll offers giving fans an option to purchase a monthly or yearly fee to watch all the anime they want comercial free. Or even if it was with commercials but giving the viewer the option to fastforward through ala tivo or dvr or if they pay. Thinking outside the box even more it would be nice to see funi go on some of their own original ventures that is to say original anime of their own in addition to what they license from overseas. I don't think there's anything wrong with funi incorporating a little more imagination in how to keep their business growing. It's a lot more forward thinking than suing people.


Here's the thing, people in America still illegally download anime they could watch through Crunchyroll, you can't defeat a group of people who don't have any cost associated to it.
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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 5:29 pm Reply with quote
Genet wrote:
This strikes me as not only alarmist, but flat-out lazy. Really? "Violated some obscure law"? Unless you're importing hardcore lolicon or pornography, they're not going to seize your K-ON or Naruto or whatever it is you're importing. To me that sounds like some BS excuse so you can justify pirating anything under the pretense of "BUT THEY MIGHT ARREST ME ST00PID LAW!!11one"


Wanna bet they can nick you for almost anything??
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:07 pm Reply with quote
Brian wrote:
One streamrip would "provide" that totally illegal "service" for the poor masses who don't live in a place where the show is available legally and apparently have a God-given right to animated entertainment product that must not be impeded by any law.

I acknowledge that this presents the mindset of international fansub consumers in an intentionally hyperbolic fashion, though I must express my dissatisfaction of the way in which they are caricatured.

The presumption that people consume fansubs through the misguided belief that they have a right to do so is itself misguided.

When I relied upon fansubs, it never once occurred to me that my actions were warranted by any manifest rights, and I'd wager that most fansub users would, if pressed, also admit that no such rights exist. I'd further my claim by suggesting that one can sufficiently characterise the motivation of the fansub user without making reference to any "rights" whatsoever: one may only need to cite a person's desires and abilities to acquire pirated content (when annexed with background beliefs about the likelihood of being punished et cetera) to establish an explanation fit for purpose.

It is quite dubious to claim that fansub consumers possess any (false) beliefs of entitlement upon which to act — their motivation needn't wait on an antecedent condition quite as strong. Broadly speaking, many voluntary human actions are caused by states quite aside a belief of being entitled to do so. The examples of which I gave are desire and ability, which are quite commonplace within the domain in question.

Again, I admit that I pounce upon your use of a purposefully exaggerated tone of voice here, but it is hoped that a serious point can be made nonetheless. Not being a major critic of fansubs myself, as should by now be obvious, I have this advice to give to those who meet this description: abandon the use of the term "right" as understood in the normative sense. The trite expression that anime is not a right need not be denied by your opponents. Indeed, they will see little need to refute it, and may hence brush it aside as a harmless attack.

Debates pertaining to the ethics of fansub usage — if indeed such debates can be placed within a class as scholarly as that of ethical discussion — would stand much to gain by freeing itself from talk of entitlement. Time could be spared towards making more pertinent criticism of the practice, criticism which the fansub user is less comfortable to take on the chin.
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Maigraith



Joined: 25 May 2010
Posts: 80
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:50 pm Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:
Genet wrote:
This strikes me as not only alarmist, but flat-out lazy. Really? "Violated some obscure law"? Unless you're importing hardcore lolicon or pornography, they're not going to seize your K-ON or Naruto or whatever it is you're importing. To me that sounds like some BS excuse so you can justify pirating anything under the pretense of "BUT THEY MIGHT ARREST ME ST00PID LAW!!11one"


Wanna bet they can nick you for almost anything??


...that links doesn't really have much to do with your manga. Everything that they had a problem with was related to either biological material(wood, food, seeds) or something that is typically taxed(tobacco). Also, the concern over biological stuff is perfectly understandable given Australia's history with invasive species.

So unless you're importing some really twisted stuff or something that comes in a wood case they couldn't care less
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Rinnon



Joined: 09 Jan 2011
Posts: 9
Location: Canada, BC, Vancouver
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 8:03 pm Reply with quote
Preface: I live in Canada, so I'm not able to get Funimation Streams. I have a premium Crunchyroll account (which I pay for monthly, and am happy to do). I purchase DVDs of Anime that I already have downloaded, because I want to own it. (I finally Bought Initial D just yesterday.)

Quote:
One streamrip would "provide" that totally illegal "service" for the poor masses who don't live in a place where the show is available legally and apparently have a God-given right to animated entertainment product that must not be impeded by any law.


I get what you're saying here, and you're right, I don't have a god given right to watch One Piece. But I won't lie, I don't feel bad for downloading Fansubs of it. If legal streams were available, that's what I'd do. But they aren't. When they become available, I'll switch. It's not elegant, but the only other option would be to just not watch it at all. Frankly, I don't see how that would help their business anymore than what I'm doing.

Quote:
I don't care that Funimation or Viz doesn't translate the attack names the "correct" way that you "like," and you feel like you need to resort to fansubs for that. You get no sympathy from me. Deal with it.


I can't express accurately how wrong I think you are here, but I'm going to do my best.

First off, I'd like to say this. With any kind of Piracy, there are several kinds of Pirates. There are the kind that would never have purchased your Product, and if it wasn't for Piracy, would just never watch it. There are the kind that WOULD have Purchased your Product if it wasn't for Piracy making it available to them. Finally, there are Pirates who are STILL going to purchase your product, even though they have access to it.

The first and second types can largely be ignored for obvious reasons. Someone who pirates, but purchases the product anyways is less a pirate than a customer, so the fact that they pirate isn't all that relevant to you. The people who pirate, but would never purchase, are also irrelevant, since you could never sell them your product anyways (maybe they can't afford it, maybe they aren't interested enough, etc.) So the people you want to focus on are the ones who WOULD have purchased your goods, but are not, because they have access to a pirated copy instead. These people wanted to watch, let's say, One Piece, enough that they would have done it legally but instead selected Piracy. Why did they do that?

At this point, I come to the Thesis of my post here. Piracy, is a Competitor. It's true in Music, Movies, Video Games. Piracy, is an alternate distribution method, that is cheaper, and with superior quality (sometimes). Companies NEED to start recognizing that. You can't realistically stamp out Piracy with Legality; you can't plead with people for a sense of Morality. It's always going to be there, you can't just ignore it, you can't destroy it. You have to compete with it.

Now, coming back around to why people pirate, INSTEAD of purchasing. If we think of Fansubs and Piracy itself as a competitor, it becomes important to look at the differences between your product and theirs. What are those differences? Is the product they provide better than yours? Is it cheaper? Can you make yours cheaper or better? Allowing your competition to stay way ahead of you is always terrible for business. You need to find out what your customers want, and do that to win them over.

To address your point specifically, you suggest that Consumers should just accept that the way Funimation does it's subtitles without complaint. That this is the way they do them, so suck it up. I say, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If the competitor offers a superior product, it makes it pretty damn hard to want to buy Funimation's goods. Legality doesn't even enter into it when it comes to this sort of thing, that's not how people think about pirating. Funimation vs Fansubs, and the Fansub seems to be better quality? Which one are people going to select?

Funimation needs to take a good hard look at their competitors. What are they doing differently? Do people like that? Should WE be doing that too? Ignoring Fansubs is like sticking your head in the ground and pretending they aren't there. If ALL Fansubs groups do attack names in a certain way, and ALL Their viewers seem to like that, maybe the official release should follow suit?

Anime fans like collecting. We all know it's true. But when I purchase a DvD set of a series I love, I want it to be the definitive best quality release. I want it so good, that I can delete all other copies and just use my DvDs. This should be the expected situation, but when official releases lack much appreciated translator notes, when the font is unappealing or difficult to read, then the intro songs lack Kareoke, etc. These are little bits of polish that Fansubs put in, that are making them look better than official releases. How this remains acceptable to Funimation (And other companies to be fair) is beyond me. Allowing a competing product to continually resonate better with your customers, to the point that THEY don't think your product is as good, is terrible terrible business.

In closing, suggesting that consumers also stick their head in the sand and accept Official Releases as the only offering will never happen. They will always compare to Fansubs, and I think the biggest benefit to the industry will come when people universally acknowledge that "Yeah, fansubs are nice, but when you want REAL quality, you want to buy the Dvds!"

In any case, sorry about the wall of text there.
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