30 replies to this topic

[BlackTsubaki]

Thanks for subbing these shows/events!!!

[Eviltorrent]

101222 AKBINGO! released. I expected it to be harder than Shuukan AKB, but never thought it would be this hard. What makes AKBINGO! hard is the edition: it is awfully edited, so you have scene changes while the previous audio is still running, all the girls talk at the same time so either you translate what you understand (which sometimes are monosyllables) or you leave a huge hole without subs while voices can actually be heard.

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

[Eviltorrent]

Decided to do only one post per week (although I should have posted before). Twitter is instantly updated with new uploads, but lazy forum lurkers can wait until I have free time to announce stuff

Releases
Let's see, since my last post we released 110126 Mousou Deka, 101117 AKBINGO!, 101229 AKBINGO!, 110105 AKBINGO! and 110112 AKBINGO!. As always, get them from our forum.

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

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

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

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

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

[Drako60]

I noticed that EvilTorrent hasn't posted here in a while with an update, so I'll give a brief update.

ProjectSUB48 currently has 62 subtitles released, which includes all of SKE's drama Mousou Deka, 8 of 9 episodes of Sakura kara no tegami, 1st episode of Majisuka Gakuen 2, various AKBingo and Shukan AKB, and various other AKB/SKE shows.

If anyone is interested in helping us to produce subtitles for the various AKB/SKE/NMB shows, including translating, timing, QA, editing, please feel free to drop us a line at our forum in the recruitment thread, we are always looking for more people to help us.

So ends my brief update and plea for help.

[Eviltorrent]

Bumping this thread after a while. I have been purging inactive QAs from our staff, and so right now we are in need of people with solid English to help us check the subtitles until they are ready for release.

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

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

PS: Translators will always be welcomed

[Eviltorrent]

We are just 10 days away from our first anniversary, and I am happy to say we have finished over 100 subtitles in this time. Things have been rough, could have been better, but overall the experience has been positive. Just like last year, this is around the time when most people are available to help because of vacations, so I am again asking for help.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Eviltorrent]

Hi all, if you got time, please answer the poll in our site: Do people want/need/appreciate our subtitles? Thanks.

[dev-null]

Hmm... I just see the results, but no way to vote.


Anyway...
I fetch pretty much all the files, even if it's late it gives me some reason to rewatch the respective episodes to see how much or how little I understood when I watched it w/o subtitles initially. I thought you did a good job with the Majisuka Gakuen translations... pretty fast, so sometimes I was forced to watch it with subtitles right away, because I didn't had time to watch it raw before you released the subs.

No idea why your non-AKBINGO! subtitles aren't downloaded so much. I guess most of your users have no clue about the really good shows like NMB Geinin!.


The only annoying bit is that I have to remove those "%20" (for spaces) etc. from the filenames first after I downloaded the files (e.g. 120814%20NMB48%20Geinin%21%20ep06.ass) . No idea if it's just a problem with Safari (didn't try it with another browser). So I have to fix the filename myself each time... not a big problem though.

[Krusha]

dev-null, the "%20" issue must be browser-specific, as I do not have that problem myself here.

Anyways, I added a reply to the poll, Eviltorrent.

[hitoyou]

Because I'm so bad at signing up on sites... My feedback stays in my head unfortunately.

I love subbed music videos and DL everything you provide. Excellent way to learn the lyrics properly.
I always prefer the PV to be a DVD-rip though... but anything you put up is mighty appreciated.

I don't use your subs for AKBINGO or Shukan as those shows are fairly easy to understand but...
for shows like Geinin, Bimyo etc it is very helpful and I can watch these shows again and again . Same goes for various drama series and documentaries, thumbs up for your effort.

I save everything I like on DVD or HD so I never watch shows streamed.

Huge appreciation for your effort!

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Chrome and Explorer works just fine, no strange messages in the filenames.

[Eviltorrent]

I guess our tastes outgrew those from the audience we used to target, while you will barely find anyone liking purely AKB48 in our team, most outside are still preferring it to others. It's a pity, because by the time they decide to check sibling groups, it might be too late. We can't continue subbing stuff we don't really like, and neither can expect our audience to just start liking something they haven't yet learned about.

This looks like a dead end.

As for the %20, I have the same problem in all Firefox and Chrome for Linux, so it might be a *nix-related issue (from what I remember even Android works correctly). We haven't heard that many complains about it, I guess, because most of ours visitors use Windows, and those using *nix are smart enough to fix the filenames themselves