Fansub ? how ?

[Uchiha-Sasuke]

Im planning to translate Naruto in my own language, since some people are having difficulties keeping track in english..they have to pause...read slowly and then continue.

What programs do i need to Fansub ? Or just add text to a video clip..i got Premiere but cant find it anywhere...help appreciated i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif

[complich8]

ok .... I was going to point to other threads, but it seems those other threads didn't survive the forum migration or something.... so basically here's what you need.

Step 0: make sure you can't find any other groups already doing this, because duplicated effort is wasteful.
Step 1: you need a raw. You can probably find this from saiyaman or l33t-raws, or numerous other sources.
Step 2: you need a script. The easiest way to get a naruto script is to use bakasan's, since almost nobody else shares their scripts with the public.
Step 3: You need to translate and edit that script into your language (I'm operating under the presumption that you're probably translating into a european non-english language and you speak zero japanese, thus will be doing a two-step translation: japanese to english, english to your language. While this isn't recommended, sometimes it's all you can do, very few people speak japanese and dutch or japanese and italian, especially not well enough to translate stuff accurately). So take your script from step 2, translate the text in it. Do your best, and ask other people with solid English skills to help clarify if you get stuck or confused.
Step 4: Get your software. At minimum, you'll need Virtualdub (or Virtualdubmod, or nandub), Divx or Xvid codecs (probably both installed), Vobsub (including textsub, directvobsub and virtualdub plugins in the plugins directory of your virtualdub or virtualdubmod install). You may also want to find a copy of SubStation Alpha, because of the next step.
Step 5: Synching the script to the raw - since you got an already-timed script you probably won't have to retime the whole thing (note if you're doing the whole translation yourself from scratch you will need to, which is a pain). So instead of screwing with that, name a copy of your raw the same thing as your script (with .avi instead of .ssa for a file extension), and play it in your favorite media player. It should hook directvobsub and automagically load the script and render it along with the video. Watch closely and listen closely to make sure that the subs appear and disappear when they're supposed to. If they do, great. If they don't, take a good guess how far off they are and use substation alpha to timeshift the whole script by that amount. Match the timing up as closely as you can (which may take a lot of work depending on how good you are at guessing, but keep at it). Watch through (or seek through) most of the episode to make sure the sub timing synchs up everywhere -- if it suddenly goes out of synch you may need to split it into 2 files and shift the part that's desynched. Make sure to save your changes and recheck the results.
Step 6: typeset changes - if you don't like the font or the color or the size of the text, you can change it now. You should probably read the documentation that came with vobsub to learn how to do this (and all sorts of other nifty stuff too). If you want to add other credits, you'd do it now.
Step 7: Encoding: load it all up in virtualdub (or vdubmod, whatever), load the raw, load the script, configure the audio encoding properties, configure the video mode and codec, and encode it. All sorts of information on how to encode can be found at www.doom9.org, or you can just experiment a whole heck of a lot.

From that, you'll have something your audience (your friends or whatever) should hopefully be able to watch in their native language.
Some useful links:
Scripts: http://www.bakasan.net/scripts
Raws: http://www.l33t-raws.com/bt/ and http://www.saiyaman.info/bt
Vobsub, Virtualdub, encoding tutorials: http://www.doom9.org
SubStation Alpha: (it seems like the original substation alpha page isn't around anymore? You may be on your own on this one, try googling)
codecs: www.divx.com www.xvid.org

The quickest way to learn how to do this stuff is tinkering with the software. The second-easiest is reading doom9's tutorials and maybe their forums. I'd recommend both i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif

[Uchiha-Sasuke]

Isnt there like a program..that i can just add text to the movie ? instead of going through all that lol

[complich8]

umm ... that's the "easy" way.
The harder (at least more expensive) way is to use aftereffects. But if you do that route, you're going to retime the whole ep on the fly, you're going to still reencode the episode, you're still going to have to do the translation.

"Adding text to video" requires 4 things: You need text. You need to know when the text starts and stops. You need to know what the text should look like. You need to know where on the screen the text is.

You need that for every line. I recommend the substation alpha/vobsub/virtualdub approach because other than translation, the whole process should take you maybe 20 minutes. Someone else has already supplied you with times (if you download a script for it like I suggested). There's already styles defined so you just have to verify that they're what you want, or tweak them. ssa/textsub automatically position lines in pretty reasonable places without any complications. All you have to do is supply the text and check that things look right.

If you're going to use the aftereffects approach, you're looking at probably 3 or 4 hours minimum, in mind-numbingly dull work, to get end results that probably aren't as solid. I don't recommend that... but suit yourself.

There's not a whole lot of decent video editing software out there, your choices are probably limited to reasonably the first route (sounds complicated but is simple) or the second route (sounds simple but is complicated).

[itachi_]

The best way to solve that problem is to continue study english, it's not that hard i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif

[Lego]

Ive been trying to become a editor, to give back, i can't and have never edited, but i can grasp the english language pretty well.

[complich8]

honestly, editing is probably one of the single hardest jobs in fansubbing, because by nature the English language is very nondeterministic and the Japanese language is significantly more deterministic (it has guidelines like "levels of politeness" that English doesn't have, for example). Decent editors following up weak translators will agonize over every line for sometimes 5 or 10 minutes per line (on tricky or complicated ones) trying to find just the right wording. Really really good editors will agonize over the same line for less time, because of their experience rewording things. But it's really difficult changing words around without losing or changing meaning. A whole script might take you 2-4 hours to get to your satisfaction, you might have ended up watching the same episode 4 or 5 times and doing another 2 or 3 epless passes at the script, and still probably won't produce something that'll satisfy a picky qc'er (like me i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif).

But you already knew that i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif.

It always amazes me, even as part of the process, that fansubbing happens at all. Every ep is just a disgusting amount of work... but I guess distributed among a bunch of people it's not too much burden on any one of us (most of the time).

[Uchiha-Sasuke]

Im actually going to wait for the sub, then translate from the sub...

The thing is, im just gonna translate...

[anime050]

Manual Labour = Translator

And the other jobs if the people know what they are doing are a breeze. i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif
Timing would probably be the easiest to learn though.

Fansubbing can get annoying though. WHen there are errors on signs.. missed times.. encoding errors. etc.

[Lego]

Heh, when i looked at the tenge 01 raw, i saw how much work they have to do. Translating everything,adding subs,editing,type setting, and etc.

Makes me apriciate that much more the things people do so i can watch anime.

[animeduckie]

I did a fansub once, god it took me forever. It was of a DBZ episode. I actually watched the dubbed version of it and just added cuss words. -cough- Yeah, anyways... study english, that's what I say!

[Mut]

so... like complich8 is part of a/a i'm guessing... if you are, i just want to know what part you take in for subbing. just curious.

[complich8]

I do qc, some editing once in a while when I'm bored, used to run distro, etc...

most of my work is uncredited 'cause it's "the regular person who can commit to being here can't be here, can you do it?" type stuff... most recently I've only been consistently active with naruto (I've been mostly "on" on naruto since around the teens, I think of the last 60 eps I've had a hand in about 50 of them). I've worked on a damned lot of projects, dating (off and on) back as far as when aone picked up rahxephon (back in the days, I did some blind qc work on one ep). I've also had my hands in haibane, l/r, gits:sac, gokusen, mz, yukikaze, futari h, hxh gi (and a touch in gi-final too), gokusen, azumanga, chrno crusade, dnangel, a touch on godannar, green green ova, gundam seed, ninja scroll, onegai twins, kurogane, rod-tv, raimuiro senkitan, I am probably missing something I worked on but of course can't think of what it is i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif, but of course since I'm usually not the "planned" person I don't get a whole lot of acknowledgement... other than the fact that I get to completely rip apart people's scripts and make them ph34r i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif

I'm also kind of the PR guy, mediator and general tech support person.

[BadGuy]

Complich8 is teh fansub god

in short i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif