How long does anime subbing take?

• abc33kr wrote on 2010-10-04 02:04
  I recently found out that the EP 4 of the shakugan no shana S OVA came out and was wondering when to expect a sub.
  
  Anyone know an average time of how long a translating team makes a sub?
• Ruquion wrote on 2010-10-04 02:08
  Depends on the group. Speedsubs tend to come out in a day though.
• abc33kr wrote on 2010-10-04 02:13
  Awww then its gonna take long to come out.
  *didn't see speedsub on previous ones*
• Taycat wrote on 2010-10-04 02:52
  Up to a week.
  
  Since, ya know, there's a new episode EVERY WEEK.
• Mentosftw wrote on 2010-10-04 02:54
  Back when gundam 00 season 2 was airing, it was subbed in several hours.
• Tatsu wrote on 2010-10-04 02:57

  Quote from Mentosftw;174816:

  Back when gundam 00 season 2 was airing, it was subbed in several hours.

  
  
  Unless you didn't use gg or BSS. In that case, two or three weeks per episode for quality subbers.
• Osayidan wrote on 2010-10-04 10:20
  Translating french to english for Death Note I did an episode on my own in one day when the main sub group for it dropped it, to make people shut up about it taking long to do when people started asking why it's been 2 weeks with no subs.
  
  So for someone who speaks japanese as well as I speak french, and who has a whole team rather than by themselves, a day is perfectly reasonable if they already have the OP/ED done. Once in a while life gets in the way so that's normal, but there's no reason for it to regularly take more than one day. These days if it takes too long other groups will step in and release faster anyways.
• Piko wrote on 2010-10-04 10:25
  Well right now the subs are up. Preview to the next season made me rage.
• NewbieNub wrote on 2010-10-04 11:04
  There are different sub-styles for different groups.
  
  You have the translators, which changes the quality of the sub. Sometimes, meanings are lost or even changed because of mistranslation. Hidden puns and sometimes, even some very basic lines turns out to be the most difficult to change into proper English.
  
  Next, you have the video editors. These are the people who edit your RAWs or HQRs and place the subs in. Once again, they are important, but ain' as important as the translators. In most cases, they are the ones which make changes to the video itself. A proper editor would be able to flawlessly throw in text and stop it from merging, or camoflauging into the background. In fact, a proper editor would make the sub look natural to the video. Video compression and perhaps even sound editing is done here too.
  
  Then, you have the Quality Checking team, basically QC. They are the one that gives comments and make edits to whatever that seems wrong in the first and/ or second. The QCers are usually either very fluent in both languages, good at spotting out mistakes, available to make the quality a standard or even increase the quality of the videos churned out by the editing team. In most cases, most anime subbing groups do not do quality checks, which explains the poor quality of language in some episodes.
  
  
  
  
  Keeping notes of those points, for a group to complete a proper quality sub could easily take a week depending on how much people is working on it in a single time. For example, an anime episode would be about 15 to 25 minutes, removing all advertisments, the Opening and the Ending AMVs.
  
  Now, given that each translator is to do 5 minutes of video, they would need 5 very experienced translator that is very fluent in both languages. They would then keep note and translate the text to whatever that is of need. This translated text would then be sent to the QC group for correction and editing. After all that correcting of the translated text, the text is then sent to the Video Editing team, which then places the text in respect with the spoken words. This process could take awhile depending on how it's done. If it's quality, then time would be taken. Of course, last but not least, the final work would then be sent back to the QC team for a final run before moving on to the enmasse.
  
  Depends on how many people are on the team. The more people you have, the faster it's done. However, speed would mean poorer quality.
• Chiri wrote on 2010-10-04 11:33
  NewbieNub, you've got your main trio wrong.
  
  The major portions of fansubbing involve
  1. Translating
  2. Typesetting (+timing, +karaoke)
  3. Encoding
  
  Typesetting takes up a lot of time, because you start off with a text file and have to time each line to the video. The time this takes can be cut down, if you have a timer who's time lines while the translator is doing their stuff, but of course pasting in the actual translation is unavoidable. Some speed subbers steal timing from foreign (CN) subbers as well.
  
  Encoding ~ Well, everything has to be done before you're set to encode. But crunching a file down will also take some time.
  
  Raw providers, Editors, QC, and whatnot?
  Well, they can add to your time, since every time a file is handed off, it must be downloaded, watched, etc.
  Editors and QC (imo) are extraneous elements set up if some portion of your team isn't very competent.
• NewbieNub wrote on 2010-10-04 11:50

  2. Typesetting (+timing, +karaoke)
  3. Encoding

  
  
  Basically, editing of the video.
  
  Oh well.
• Tatsu wrote on 2010-10-04 14:17
  Timing can easily be done in under 40 minutes.
• Ruquion wrote on 2010-10-04 15:25
  Typesetting for Shaft series take forever though, considering they have over 9k signs in every single episode.
  
  QCs are pretty much unnecessary. Just release it first, get some input from the viewers, and release a v2 later on.
• Chiri wrote on 2010-10-04 16:46

  Quote from NewbieNub;175077:

  Basically, editing of the video.
  
  Oh well.

  
  
  Using the wrong terminology.
  If you were talking about scanlations, it'd be ok, but yeah.
  Typesetting/timing and encoding are usually done by entirely different people, grouping it together doesn't make sense.
  
  

  
  *The more people you have, the faster it's done.
  *In most cases, most anime subbing groups do not do quality checks, which explains the poor quality of language in some episodes.

  
  
  ^ Misconceptions.
  There's a balance between workload and number of people, but the more steps you add, the more time it takes.
  
  The reason that many groups require QC is because of ****ty translators, who either are in jpn101 or English is their second (or third, or fourth) language. Basically, these translators get the meaning down, but it sounds awk as hell.
  
  If you have good translators, QC is just time wasted.
  So your QCer found no mistakes? Well, you just wasted the QCers time and delayed release.
  So your QCer found one or a couple of minor mistakes? You wasted all that time for 1 or 2 mistakes that could have just been fixed with a v2.
  So your QCer found a boatload of mistakes? Fire your translator; doing it yourself would save time.
• Ruquion wrote on 2010-10-04 18:46

  Quote from gg-subs:

  From our time in fansubbing, we’ve come to the conclusion that QC exists for multiple reasons, none of which are positive:
  1) It’s a mental block where fansubbers do it because they think that something has to be “perfect”.
  2) It’s for the timer/editor/whoever to be free of guilt if something is still wrong in the release. “Well, the QCer didn’t point it out”.
  3) It ends up being a waste of time because your timer/editor/whoever are good enough on their own and your QCers are just timesinks.
  4) It’s something you’re reliant on because your timer/editor/whoever suck. In which case, it’d be more practical if the QCers took the timer/editor/whoevers jobs to begin with.
  
  And also that QC has multiple results/outcomes, none of which are positive:
  1) Your QCer finds 1 error. Grats. You wasted all of that time for one ****ing thing.
  2) Your QCer finds a ton of errors. Grats. Your team wasted their time. This QCer should be the person doing the job of the one who ****ed up so badly.
  3) Your QCer finds 2 errors and misses the other 2.
  4) Your QCer finds no errors but wants to make themselves seem useful, so they make useless changes. More time wasting.
  5) Your QCer doesn’t actually QC.
  6) Your QCer thinks QC is an extension of editing, and they check nothing else.
  

  Reason why QC was dissolved for gg.