“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I
learn.” ― Benjamin Franklin
Even though Mr. Franklin must of had something else on his mind when he said this, I think it could also be used in order to refer to our segmenting work.
Segmenting is about collecting experience and getting better with every segment, part, and project.
This is AmyPun, I’m an avid Vikian and the Channel Manager of Love Around and Two Fathers. I want to have this opportunity to share my passion about segmenting with you all today!
I have organized an Amy’s Vikipedia of Segmenting Skills on my homepage where the dancing bunny-pigs are.
It would be a helpful resource for you to master the skills of segmenting and self-correction. It’s quality assured by most of the Grad Panel members who became my friends after I graduated and became part of the Seg101 family as a moderator for Seg101 and Express101.
Here is the shortcut link to my…
Grading Guideline:
Diary of Lessons:
Please let me know if you have any questions or encounter problems accessing those resources.
Lastly, I will list what is typically expected for segments in terms of quality and accuracy…
Please avoid short choppy segments. By that, try to avoid 0.5 second segments if possible.
Try to cut by the voice you hear. Do not depend on the waveform, only use it as a cross reference. Make your cut right at the hint of voice heard. That way your segments would be synchronized and accurate.
Try to have a separate segment for each speaker, unless they are simply greeting each other and the segment is less than 2 seconds long. Only those Hi/bye/yes/okay/thanks/welcome/morning/night etc… are okay for two speakers to be on the same segment, which is quite rare.
Try to combine shorter (1 to 2 seconds long) segments by the same speaker so most segments are around 3 to 4 seconds in length. If the segment ends before a no-voice/silence, please try to have 1.2 seconds extra at the end so our audience could have sufficient time to read the subtitles.
Try to split longer segments, those that are more than 4 to 5 seconds long (i.e. I did see some that were 10 to 15 seconds long) should be split according to breaks in their speech or between their sentences if you understand what they spoke. The ideal length for segments are around 3 to 5 seconds long (about 2 to 3 cm in terms of length if you roughly estimate by your eyes).
Please try to use continuous cuts for dialogue exchanges, extending the ends of the previous segment to next segments beginning so there aren’t those 0.1 to 0.4 second gaps between segments, minimizing the flashing of subtitles on screen.
Lastly, please refrain from segmenting single emotions, those Ah…, Um…, Eh…, Om…, Hmm… Should not have a segment because they are not words. You could segment them if and only if that emotion is immediately followed by a dialogue, such as “Ah…I finally understand!”. However, please refrain from subtitling emotions though. The emotional part is only for extending the length of our segment.
In general, your skills about combine and split of segments will improve through experience.
I also have a playlist about how to segment videos, the first three videos are annotated, the rest are just basic cutting without explanation so you could observe and learn.
Sorry for making you read such a long harangue potential and aspiring segmenters. I don’t think segmenting could be explained using fewer words that I have done so right now…I hope my tips would be helpful to you on your current and future projects.
Yes, Mihaela is the co-manager of Express 101. She is my boss since I am the only active moderator there right now. I typically help maintain homepages and updates them as well as creating Graduation Cards.
BeckyK, what is your favorite cartoon character by the way? I need to know so I could surprise you in the future.
Amyyyy…It’s a very kind of you! I’ve seen some of your gif Grad.Cards for the graduates…They are all look great. I love too many cartoon characters, hard to decide…lol…but since I’m working in environmental fields…anything related to insects, I’d like them so much! Thanks so much Amy. You’re so awesome.
BeckyK, you must work hard for your Express 101 graduation day. Your Card is going to be amazing. You can ask Chizzygirl about it, she can assure you that it’s beautiful!
:)…They mesmerize me…lol…I’m curious as well, looking forward for that! I’m still on my way to get there, chizzygirl. So…hopefully this could energize me more for finalize every task on SEG101.
I do, I do…I’m trying my best, Amy. So many thing I learn from mihaelagh. Looking forward to seeing it, Amy…I’m still in the process of shaping more skill …This should energize me more!!! Thanks a bunch, Amy!!!
Just to let you know, I created a new video last night, teaching how to carefully synchronize and check every segment for Korean Raw. Korean Raw is likely your Grad Raw, please take a careful look at it…
Below is the link to my newly made annotated video from Live In Style, with careful and detailed explanation of every move.
This video would show you how I eclipse check segments for Korean drama. I always use F to pause, left arrow to toggle back and pause, toggle back and pause few times until I get pause right at the hint of sound heard using the F key. Then I would use the space-bar to make the cut. After the cut is made, I check to ensure that the cut is at Left-Eclipse, meaning 0.05 second before hint of sound heard at the green line. That way your segment would be perfectly synchronized. Do that for every segment and your video’s synchronization would be flawless.
There is no correct way to cut Hardsubs. In the past, I used to cut exactly to it, now I try to cut complete sentences, about 2 hardsubs per segment depending on screen presence and how wordy it is. About 10 to 12 Chinese characters per sentence is a good estimate. Rise and fall of Hardsubs is a good estimate.
I also like to mute the sound and focus on the Hardsubs, cutting to voice and Hardsub on the same video is too distracting for me. However you must unmute and check your work after you are done to make sure you don’t have two people talking on the same segment. Taiwanese Hardsub timings are not too bad, so cutting to HS only is okay.
Hardsubs are easier to cut nowadays as the sub-box covers up the hardsubs entirely. You could also see whether the subtitle box appear same time as the hardsub to ensure your “first” segment of the chain is always synchronized. I find the first segment is always the most noticeable and important. The last segment of the chain is also important with 0.2 extended so it appears to fall about same time as the hardsub, a visual illusion.
Between Firefox and Google, I noticed a 0.1 delay/timing difference, therefore I try to teach my students to cut slightly early (0.1) for HS Videos, so regardless of which browser we try to use for checking, the discrepancy would be limited. It also accounts for the lag.
If you are thinking that you would like to segment a drama, please don’t just watch the little video that Viki has produced and think it is easy and you can just jump right in. It is not easy and it requires training to do it right. Some people can teach themselves but they need guidance. What Amy has done here is an effort to help you learn and she has done a good job. All of the people associated with Seg101 work so hard to try to help people learn to do a good job segmenting and it requires a lot of time. Poor segmenting ruins a show which turns off viewers. Without viewers, why are we here?
This year, more than ever, many people have jumped into segmenting without any assistance and segmented everything they laid their eyes on. I have seen where people have run up segment numbers to 5000, 10,000 and as much as 30,000 just from watching the little Viki video on segmenting. All they have done is to create a bunch of shows with BAD segmenting. You do not get better with quantity if you do not know what you are doing wrong. IT ISN’T ABOUT QUANTITY … IT’'S ABOUT QUALITY! Someone with training from someone like Amy or the others will produce FAR better segments in only 300 segments compared to one of the people I mentioned with 30,000 segments.
The people racing through the quantity numbers are also making it difficult for others, who are really trying to learn, to find places where they can practice and apply the information like Amy is providing.
To make our Viki community stronger, I encourage anyone seriously interested in learning to segment to participate in Seg101. Space is limited though so if you can’t get in right away use the resources like Amy has provided and try to learn things correctly. You can also post a note here saying that you are really interested and working hard at it and would appreciate some review or assistance. Perhps someone with experience will try to help you out.
Please don’t trash up the channels with poor segments … try to learn! If you manage to drive a car around a racetrack one time, does that make you a race car driver?
To make it clearer for you, I will correct an example for you to review along with me:
I will use Two Fathers Episode 28 for my example of what good and bad segmenting looks like.
Example of segments that needs to be corrected (Ep 28, part 1, 1:36 to 2:04):
As you can see from the screenshot picture above, the ends were too short, some segments were too long (near 1:42 to 1;46), there were those small gaps between segments (near 1:39, 1:42, 1:46) which will cause our subtitles to flash on and off on the screen.
There was also one or two slightly late segments (by 0.1 to 0.2 seconds after the voice was heard), and some early segments(near 1:47, where it was early by about 0.4 seconds, before sound was heard).
Example of segments after necessary adjustments and corrections are made:
As you can see from the screenshot picture above, you can see that the segments are more coherent now, there is more flow and length with the segments. All the short gaps between segments are gone, shorter segments are combined for length, longer segments are split so each sentence have their own segment. All the segment beginnings are matched with the voice (sorry I couldn’t show you that because it’s a picture and I cannot provide auditory experience for you).
Please try to aim for segments similar to my corrected example above.
Thanks Mariko for pinning our Post to the top. Deeply Appreciated.
I hope my post would help other segmenters who don’t have time to take the Seg101 course to be able to master the skill of segmenting on their free time.
