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Wannabe Fansubs - The Subbing Process

See what fansubbing is all about from a Wannabe perspective.
*Please Note the Sarcasm

Contents

Because many of you probably don't know much about what goes on behind the scenes, this is a quick insiders guide to the main idea of what's going on. I've honestry written this with from true experience for an insiders view that you won’t be able to find anywhere else.

   1. Finding a series to fansub
   2. Getting the RAWs
   3. Getting RAWs to relevant persons
   4. Translating
   5. Timing
   6. Additional Translations
   7. Editing
   8. Typesetting & Fine Timing
   9. Encoding
  10. Quality Check
  11. Distro/Release
  12. Feedback

1. Finding a series to fansub

Deciding on what should be subbed is not an easy deal. Firstly it must be something feasible. Secondly, we must accept the responsibility of our work, and the risks involved. Everyone must agree on contributing and feel like it is worthy and that there will be fans to appreciate our work, like how hentai is targeted for the more perverted anime watching population. There are usually many series out there, and conflicts arise to about what to sub. Here's how a typical staff discussion would go.

2. Getting the raws

In the fansubbing world, unsubbed recorded Japanese anime are referred to as RAWs. Once we have agreed upon a workable series, we set out to find that ‘thing’ we want to sub. Now what are the methods of doing this? Of course, this means hours of struggling with guys on Winny in Japan who record practically every anime in existence that has been aired or DVDed. Trying to communicate and acquire anything from these bandwidth greedy bastards who are ironically mostly on 100Mbit cable is an amazing feat. This is how a typical negotiation may go.

Sending the raw to the translator

Now that we finally somehow acquired the raw, we have to get it to our translator, Zodiacers, who happens to be on 56k modem.

SOzuken Bandwidth stats: 1: _komugi_-ova2.5__divx5_DVD(640x480).avi 471.7MB is 0.6% done at 924 cps. Eta: 145hrs 58mins 46secs. Sending to: Zodiacers. 2: horny_bunnies extra ep2.avi 262.3MB is 31% done at 181083 cps. Eta: 27mins 39secs. Sending to: Ohmer. 3:Lame Serial Experiment ep7.avi 233.3MB is at 55% done at 172503 cps. Eta: 10mins 11secs. Sending to: lainlover

4. Translating

This is probably the main and most important part of fansubbing. Actually, fansub groups 'die' when their translators leave them. So noting the importance of this, the translations decide whether the anime will become watchable, enjoyable, or just plain confusing, or worse yet, misleading. It would be ideal if we could find a fluent Jap/Eng speaker, but such circumstances are rare, so thus we must rely on the good old schooled translator.

But realize that translators are also usually the lazier people in the group. The following expresses the feeling of most translators:

5. Timing.

Timing is one of the most painful processes, even for the professional. The key word here is 'perfection'. You may not notice it when you watch anime, because most of the time the timing is perfect or very near to that. When timing is off, they are more than often annoying as they take away much if not all the joy of watching your favorite scenes. They become spoilers if they start too fast and suspenders when they come too slow. It takes revision after revision, playing through that one line for the hundredth until your roommate recommends that it's time you remove some of your earwax.

The job of timing is solid, easy enough, but you probably get no acclaim in return, only flame. If you do a good job, nobody will notice, but if you fall, people will make sure you break more than a few bones.

6. Fixing up the translations: additional translations.

Self-explanatory.

Substation Alpha

7. Editing: fixing language

The Japanese have weird ways to bring things about. They say unnecessary things and DON’T say the necessary. For example, 'baka da' meaning literally: 'Is an idiot'. Okay… what the hell, are you talking to me? Or you just referring to your mom. In anycase, the Japanese language also has unusual figures of speech that nobody would normally understand. (i.e. she, with her fearless nature, steadily rising the steps to become a star, who had yearned to be one kind of girl, finally became a top acting star: my comment, -_-''') Our translators and editors go head over heels to try to turn this into human language.

Before Editing

After Editing

8. Typesetting and Fine Timing

Typesetting is the act of positioning and styling text. It's all about making the general fansub concept look good whether this be adjusting times here and there to match the scenes or sometimes it may include font settings and such. Ever noticed those neat effects or English translations of things that seem to blend really neatly into the anime. That's "l33t" typesetting in the fansubber's tongue. Typesetting is the major part of a fansub’s aesthetic aspect. Usually when the typesetter gets lazy, it’s not much of a job cuz it’s well you don’t have to do anything (i.e. all signs top title positions, done). However, this is another important aspect that distinguishes the better groups from the ……let’s just say, other groups.

9. Encoding

Now making sure your DVD quality raw doesn’t end up turning into a 1995 TV rip, we must ensure that the encoding settings are correct and suitable for the particular encode. Encoding is actually not a hard job. As many say, it is the only job except for raw hunting that you could do while sleeping.

The secret and difficulty of the encoder here is always with the filters. Smooth, yes, a very useful filter. Pixellated? smooth, still no good? smooth smooth smooth it into oblivion. Of course, there are also the finer details we need to mess with to ensure that the final file size does not end up being 2.3 gigabytes. If you want to know, it can proved that the usual compression level can be set to prevent minimal distortion and modulate bitrate curve to a medium aggression slope with non-fluxuating strength and minimal overflow degregation by using the 2-pass variant quantizer, ascertaining the redistribution of minimal keyframes and obtaining maximum gain on high-frequency rebirth of interleaving audio with time correction factor of 100 milliseconds, while also ensuring the quantizer matrix dus not cause a rescinence cascade in its solution or disobey the guassian retraxation laws….okay what the hell am I saying. VirtualDub, anyone?

10. Quality Control

Of course we're not aiming to be perfect, but since we've got the time, why not the hell just give it a go at some quality control here. The purpose is for the controller to take a run through the script and find any ERRORS that really require fixing before it goes off to encode. So we send it to our quality controller Musashiken, and so the story continues.

But thankfully, MusashiKen-qced scripts seem to be of great standard, and with good reason xD.

11. Release

So, encoded. It’s done, voila, our final masterpiece. Now its time to get the release out to the world. Before the advent of BT, such a process was a nightmare, but even so, there are still always a group of leechers who prefer to do it the old fashion way on irc. But well I'm usually too excited to wait for the distro to get teh files for the release since each encode takes 3 months to finish, and the situation on my Fserve ends up like this.

Total Number Of Sends Currently: 5 - Total CPS: 8.5kB Total Number Of Queues Currently: 47/50

Fserve Description:[WF-Archive, but university restrictions back on again. Yes, slow like fuck.] - SysReset 2.53

13. Feedback

Thirteen, our lucky number. After announcing this on animesuki or baka-updates, you sit back and watch the leeching begin. Quite an interesting phenomena really. But little do people ever receive praise, rather the ear is only more familiar to flame. As you can see, nothing other but a beautifully rewarding experience. What do you want to sub today?

Related Links

• http://www.wannabefansubs.info/index.php?page=fansubbing.php