How does subbing work?
Translated from 眉心有条线@baidutieba [who took it from RunningMantieba!]
Why I'm translating this is because I've seen so many posts on tumblr demanding for eng subs a day or two after the kvariety is out and many of the other subbers, like me, have no team what-so-ever.
Before you start complaining about late subs, please understand the procedures...and the fact that everyone is doing it on their free time and at no cost. All we subbers are asking for is only 1 thing: please continue to support the show and our beloved stars. :) Plus to all those theives stilling the links, putting adfly on them and then claiming it as yours...have you no shame?
--->PROCEDURES: [trans starts here] All [[]] are personal thoughts
First of all the overall procedure:
Source--Translations--Timings--Subtitle Effects--Checks--Encoding--Uploading
1:Source
Sources have to be found in time on korean websites, we usually use 720p, most of the time it's (a certain version), because it's the fastest, but its quality isn't exactly the best.
[[That is why the quality of SKS isn't that great. I use 450p or 360p because it's (a) fastest to be uploaded and (b) takes up less space and bandwidth while downloading, encoding and uploading.]]
2: Translations
Right now there are more people who knows korean, but it's still relatively few compared to those who do not know. According to each episode of 80-90 minutes, it's almost as long as a movie, with conversations averaging to be 1000 sentences. Such a huge amount of work, how can you expect others to fork out the effort without recognition?
[[I'd admit, translations takes up relatively...at least twice the time needed to watch it because you have to translate and write it out. It's not as much as timing as you'd read below, but finding trans could be tough. People like me who translate from mandarin needs to find 2 sources. One raw, one with the Chinese subs.]]
3: Timing
Timing is essentially the process of alining each statement the time at the start of the statement and the time when the statement ends. This isn't a job that requires a lot of brain power, but it's draining in terms of stamina. You also have to be very patient. Anyway, I did it once, and I certainly won't want to do it again!!
You tend to click up to a thousand times, and is the most tiring segment of the whole process. As mentioned, each episode has about 1000sentences, and you have to align once at the front and the other at the end, it's a completely robot-ised job you do sitting in front of the computer, requiring n hours and even more.
[[I cannot further explain this unless you have experienced it yourself. I really really dislike this segment and usually tries to avoid taking up this kind of jobs in a subbing group. You basically spend you whole day doing one episode. I sincerely admire official Timers in various fansub groups because you guys spend the most time and effort over other segments. Which is also why many a times a subbing group tend to hire more timers than other parts of the subbing process.]]
4. Subtitle Effects
To give the subtitle accurate position, the font and its size, subtext and more.
[[Usually it's fixed, but has to be double-checked...]]
5. Check
Checking to see if each statement matches the lips' movements, if there's any grammar/spelling mistakes, translations errors and more. Watching one episode takes up the whole 90 minutes, not to mention we watch it more than once.
[[I could almost memorize what happened after finishing with the subbing. You basically know the program backwards in.]]
6. Encoding
Putting the subtitles file together with the video and making it one complete document. This segment requires technique. Learning how to make the video as clear and the file size as small as possible for easier sharing is something we've been constantly revising and experimenting with.
[[Encoding might be easy after you've aquired the skill, but your computer basically heats up to no end during this period. It's like burning a disk; those that have that kind of memories would recall the loud whirring of the fan and the heat of the disk? That's like killing your computer each time you encode. Plus finding a great encoder isn't easy; most aren't free.]]
7. Uploading.
Before one can download, there needs to be a source that uploads to all different web sources.It also takes up alot of time to provide these sources, and streaming is done on a longterm basis just in case of people who are looking for sources.
[[This is especially true for China sites who usually prefers to use torrents as downloads over direct downloads. But either way, uploading depends on internet speed and takes up alot of time. If your internet speed is playing with you, you might get errors and have to start all over again. Not fun at all]]
--- [trans end]
So, forgive me for using these words but...to all the ignorant people who thinks subs come out of thin air, think again.
And to all the subbers out there, hwaiting! :D