I HATE the subbing on Nfx! There is no comparison with our Viki subbers when it comes to comprehension of the scene. They also tend to use a lot more foul language (although I’ve been seeing it creep in to current dramas on Viki also).
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On viki the language is kept to what is in the original. I personally don’t neuter curse words if the original is not neutered for example.
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Exactly! And there’s a character limit and that must be followed without fail. And obviously when getting paid one have to follow whatever they say!
I don’t know much on this topic, but as a deaf person who depends on subtitles wanted to add a point from my view. On Viki a deaf individuals depends on just subtitles provided in their language. On Netflix many shows, as well movies there are 2 options. English subtitles, and English CC. English CC is specific subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing which are more detailed. Unfortunately, I noticed that when I watch dramas from different countries many don’t follow those requirements that leaves me guessing at times who is speaking if their backs are turned, or why a character is behaving a certain way. However, I must say Viki has some amazing subtitles, yes sometimes miss certain things, but I have enjoyed many dramas due to these subtitles. Some subtitles have gone beyond what is expected so detailed that leave me in awe. I also like how Viki subtitles might include in bracket info based on culture to explain what the character is saying. As always a big thank you for taking time to provide subtitles, it is much appreciated.
I am not sure if explaining right, but for those not fully understanding or wanting more information on difference between subtitles and captions I am referring to. This link is a good start:
Also a example of difference between subtitles and captions can be seen on Netflix Korean Movie which provides both options of English and English CC: ‘Space Sweepers’ with actor Song Joong Ki
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I’m really sorry that there is no option for those as well. Of course we cannot include character name and descriptions of sounds in the “regular” English subtitles because it would be super-annoying for the majority of viewers. But Viki, if they wanted, could add another “language”, English CC, to the existing ones and I’m sure that there would be dedicated volunteers who would convert the existing English subs to those suitable for the deaf and hard of hearing. It’s not a difficult thing to do, once you learn the rules, and definitely something to suggest to them.
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Imar, no need to apologize I can’t complain on Viki subtitles, I think they do an outstanding job already. I love how detailed Viki is. I just finished watching Eve, and I give The Revenge Team a standing ovation on subtitles. The reason I shared my views, is because I seen in other topics, and comments during dramas where many complain subtitles are not up to fast, too long, too short, etc. not realizing those who contribute to subtitles take time out of their personal life to volunteer here on Viki. As a deaf person, I am grateful and appreciate it because not only are they connecting/educating me to another culture, but to the hearing world as well that I can not hear. Yes, some dramas might be less or more subtitles than others, but the fact that they even have subtitles that is enough for me. To me, you guys are some of our silent superheroes in deaf community.
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Your research is amazing, congratulations!
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Here’s my opinion, for what it’s worth:
- Viki. The volunteers do an outstanding job! They make it much easier to understand some of the detail of what is spoken with their notations. Hats off to those wonderful people!
- NF. Easy to read, understandable but often don’t have the detail notes that would make what was spoken make sense.
- Prime. This one is a hit or miss for me. I’ve watched some shows where the dialog was so choppy and grammatically incorrect, it had to have been subbed by a machine. Some show’s subbing is very good while other’s leave a LOT to be desired.
- IQIYI. My biggest complaint about this service is that I do not believe they offer subs with black background (which makes, for me who watches everything on my 50" TV, easier reading). I’ve checked with them and the background is available for those who use the app through their phone, etc. but that doesn’t work for me. Very seldom, but occasionally, I believe some of their subs are also machine-produced.
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I must say that sometimes human subbers can be as bad as machines, or even worse. Nowadays AI translators have gotten much better than they were even two years ago. Whereas stupid people who translate literally and lazy people who used to play videogames on their phone at school when their own language was taught, have always existed and will always exist. As we say in Italian, the mother of fools is always pregnant.
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- Viki. The volunteers do an outstanding job! They make it much easier to understand some of the detail of what is spoken with their notations. Hats off to those wonderful people!
I had taken a break from watching anything on viki, now its just annoying that some segments are 7 secs long when there seems to be a reasonable gap in between the speech to have separate segments. I don’t want to read two full, long sentences in one segment.
- Prime. This one is a hit or miss for me. I’ve watched some shows where the dialog was so choppy and grammatically incorrect, it had to have been subbed by a machine. Some show’s subbing is very good while other’s leave a LOT to be desired.
Are you talking about their original shows or other shows they host? If the subs are in the original language, perhaps its from the original producers. Otherwise, I think all the other languages they offer are machine translated.
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I have only watched a couple things of Asian content on this platform, but I was quite surprised by the very poor quality on one of them. It looks like this was possibly a joint production between Prime and one of the big-name production companies in Korea, so I don’t know the source of the subs, but the grammar and punctuation were terrible, and they couldn’t even keep the character names and genders straight at times.
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The thing with RViki now is that the segments at times are way too short, and the subber writes more than they should since there was no need to add all those extra words they put in there, but I’m guessing they are piling their contribution count since now is harder for them to get contribution counts they don’t deserve in the first place. If subbers for their own greedy selfish reasons want to get away with that, the implemented new rules prevent them from doing so, but somehow they found a way to add excess words, and that is affecting so much the viewers enjoyment of reading the subtitles bc they are gone in a flash!
In regards to other sites like Netflix/PRIME/HBO MaX I have no complaints whatsoever or I have seen any grammatical errors in their subtitles. BUT… this
does needs mention here, and I hope all you dissatisfied with those site subs check and see if you have CAPTION mode on, and make CAPTION is off and SUBTITLES mode is on. I was angry and frustrated until my daughter fixed that for me and told me to make sure I don’t turn on captions. Captions besides adding ridiculous stuff like; ‘‘Honking the horn’’ or ‘‘light switch on/off ‘’ ‘’ bird poop’’ these added words take your focus away from the scene’s dialog, and there is definitely too many unnecessary words to read in the screen.
A HORRIBLE thing PRIME is doing now is that they dub (mainly) the Japanese dramas/movies/dramas, and I can’t take the dubbing off! I like to hear the real voices of the Japanese actor/actress bc it sounds so much better to my ears. I have actually refuse to watch a drama/movie bc is dubbed in English, and I can’t deal with it since to me, it doesn’t sound right at all. It takes so much away from a dramatic/romantic/ scene, and it’s a real shame.
I have seen a few movies/dramas with AI created subs, and you can almost feel like you are a robot as you read the sentence/subtitle. I have already written complains and hope they look into that more closely, and hopefully they can fix that problem. I already solved the Caption issue I wasn’t aware of, and finally resolved it thanks to my daughter.
That’s for hearing impaired people. Captions also have the speaker as [name] most of the time, which makes translation easier.
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Many many years ago, we at Ninja Academy for Segmenting volunteered to teach and to include close captioning segments but the viki staff at the time declined the offer.
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Would have been super helpful and made things a lot easier for OL that require knowing gender/age, etc. They would have been able to work on the subs without referencing the video (as much). Something simple to indicate speech has switched to to l. formal, derogatory, m. form. h. form. , abbreviations or maybe even a interface selection for designation, would make translation easier for some languages.
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I feel your pain. Until I learned to differentiate courtesy levels in Korean, I had to beg the English team to illuminate me on what the characters were using.
Since then I’ve figured out a simple (not 100% accurate, but has a pretty decent percentage, good enough for most OL volunteers) to discern this by ear + by knowing what would be reasonably expected, given the Korean rules in society (those rules are the same in Chinese and Japanese society as well). I detailed it on a thread about editing (very good thread generally, highly recommended, many people said useful things there)
But … working at the subs without referencing the video? That’s a no no for me, if I find out a subber doesn’t follow the drama and watch all the episodes, I never work with her/him again. You are bound to make very stupid mistakes if you don’t know what’s going on, the character’s relationships, the backstory, to what they refer to when they talk. So more work for me the editor, just because of the subber’s laziness and greediness to take ten projects at the same time.
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Yes, I know is for the hearing impaired. It doesn’t bother me at all except that some movies/dramas on Prime/netflix for example, offer only [caption] and no option for regular subtitles. I believe captions are made mainly by AI, but in certain movies/dramas, they do add the name of the one who did the caption/subtitles.
Like one time I read a ‘‘caption’’ [MAN WALKING THROUGH THE LEAVES.] besides the fact that they always add the periods inside the brackets (we all know by now that’s a no/no), what bothers me the most is that some of the descriptions in the caption are totally unnecessary since the viewer is deaf, not blind. The hearing impaired viewer can see the man is walking through the leaves, so I find it a bit insensitive. But I think I know their ulterior motive since to get paid good money, the subber has to meet a large quota of words done by them.
PS. When there’s no options for regular subs in the movies/dramas; I don’t bother to watch with caption only because is overwhelming for me to see so much stuff all over the place, and that period inside the bracket is like a knife going deeper into the wound … 
You’d rather they had [Leaves crunching]?
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People get excited for some future show only for it to be a letdown. They shouldn’t be picking up projects they have no interest or clue if they’d like it or not. Best to just not sub if interest is lost, if you don’t even want to watch the show.
I don’t understand what the reason is for the quantity rush is. Is that for gold qc or clout? Why have others butcher your language with machine translation when you can do it by hand?
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