You’re very welcome Becky. I personally found Chrome most accurate as it flows the best and Seg101 Grad Panelists typically use Chrome HTML to do their grading. As long as you pause and make your cut right at or 0.05 seconds before the hint of voice heard, you are definitely going to be synchronized throughout your video.
Hi Lacruiser:
I don’t really know what you mean but I think I’ve seen the segment window shaking left to right for a quick moment sometimes when I segment too quickly… especially when I use the right arrow too fast to forward through no voice areas.
To me, my only suggestions for you is to use XXL Eclipse method in my diary to make your cuts. Since all your segments are back to back, you can always eclipse check for timing on the beginning on each segment, that way minor adjustments would not effect the overall flow and appearance of the segments.
To me, parsimony meaning “whole is greater than sum of its parts” is the most important for segmenting. We don’t look at individual segments, we have to look at the whole picture, whether all the segments together are generally good.
Hi Hesto:
Have you read through my Diary lessons. I think Lesson 9 was directed towards Taiwanese/Chinese Raw with a table distinguishing what is a sound and what is meaningful dialogue and whether it should be segmented or not…I’ve also included example of where that sound could be found…
One more tip, I noticed that many experience segmenters suffer late segments on Taiwanese dramas because the first word of the sentence seems to be very faint to hear by non-native Chinese/Taiwanese speakers. Therefore, listen closely to slight hint of sounds when the speaker open the mouth, their “ni” meaning you, “wo” meaning I and so forth could be easily missed…
I think that’s pretty much it. When I try to stop the timeline keeps moving slowly for about one mark (.2 sec). The sound stops like it should but the timeline keeps slowly creeping forward. I have only seen this in Chrome.
I just read over your Diary lesson, I really like common sounds list. I wish I’d read that earlier… I’ve been segmenting for “Aiyo” and “eh” (which I thought was more like "Hey).
What I find on Chinese/Taiwanese (and sometimes Japanese) is the the long “ssssss” at the being of a word. If I segment to where I first her the start of that ‘S’ it seems early.
Hi, nice tips up there. But I’m curious how to segment 2 different people talking at the same time with different dialogues?
If they talk to fast after each other or at the same time you combine them to prevent flashy unreadable subs. And if there is a group talking at the same time I always focus on the dialogues which I think is most important.
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What do you mean? Like if there’s overlapping voices or something? Generally, you just have one segment. The translator will just have to format it something like
- Speaker 1.
- Speaker 2.
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Hi Chiza:
I think I get what you mean. I think segmenting requires a lot of practice and experimentation. I think the fine tuning part is the most difficult. I was around 8800 segment experience when I began to have good control of my segmenting technique…
For instance, if you know for certain dramas like Goddess of Marriage, Good Doctor, or Scandal, the wave is going to be accurate, try to cut about 1mm or 0.2 seconds away from the base of the wave.
If you always have this expectancy, you must hit the f button before it’s 1mm away of prevent the slip to occur. That is why you would see me toggle back using left arrow and f key to pause couple of times to check…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemtEhYX9Lo
Overtime, it would become second nature to you and your cuts would be accurate without too much checking and cross-check as you used to…
Let me know if it sounds easier…
I could also share with you my finger positions if you like…
Left Hand:
pinky on ctrl
index finger on f and spacebar (switching between the two buttons)
Right Hand:
index finger on left arrow (correct late segments and toggle back)
middle finger on up and down arrow to adjust the ending length
ring finger on right arrow (correct early segments and toggle forward)
middle finger on enter to save
middle finger on backspace to delete
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Hi Hesto:
I think we should always keep Seg101 philosophy in mind, NO LATES ALLOWED. Therefore I would personally segment at the hint of sssss heard for “Shi” meaning Yes because that is where the first hint of sound heard and dialogue begins.
Mihaelagh said it’s personal preference as to where to cut if you hear chattering dialogue like nnnnn…ni…NI (meaning yyyyy…yo…YOU). But if it’s a long beginning sound like ssssss, then it’s better to be early and cut at hint of s-sound heard.
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Hi Nangli24:
I agree with scircus…
If you have two overlapping dialogue at the same time, it’s better to segment them together and subtitle it on two lines…
For instance…
Speaker 1: Do you want to have lunch together?
Speaker 2: No thanks, I ate already…
Sometimes it doesn’t have to overlap, even for fast exchanges that’s less than two seconds for two people you could have them on same segment subbed on two lines. That way, there is better screen presence of subtitles so the audience could better comprehend the dialogue…
Yeah, I usually don’t cut until right about when they say the entire word. Otherwise the words are just sitting there when no one’s really said anything yet.
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Yes, I agree with you scircus. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s all personal preference and based on your own experience. There is no correct way to segment. As long as you follow the basic rules of thumb for timing, length and synchronization, you would find the most comfortable way to develop your own segmenting style.
oh good! I’m glad I’m not the only one 
Hesto:
Taiwanese drama is becoming a trend for VIKI licensing. You must practice more and try to listen closely for hint of sound. I’m sure that your skills would improve immensely over time. To me, practice always makes perfect!!!
I know SignsofSerendipity has a My Lucky Star channel, try to PM her and ask if you could segment and practice some Taiwanese Raw over there…
I think I just might! (thanks for the suggestion!)
You’re very welcome. Remember to have your resume ready saying you are Seg101 graduate and AmyPun recommended you there. Signs was my Seg101 student, she should be happy to let you perfect your skills there!
Thanks for sharing your segmenting tips with us!
Hello All Potential and Aspiring Segmenters:
Lately one my segmenter friend told me that more than ever, many new segmenters are trying to segment a few Music Videos before applying to Korean Drama channels as a segmenter.
In my humble opinion, Korean dramas are very difficult and challenging to segment if you don’t have sufficient skills and practice beforehand.
I remember before went through Segmenter 101 program, my first Korean project was Glass Mask. I think I backed out after the third voiced segment I made. It was a nightmare, I didn’t know what I was doing and how to control the classic segment timer with good timing and technique…
Months later, after I was accepted into Express 101 program… my first PV was Korean too. There were only 7 segments. I was very careful. Despite I passed without correction for PV1, those 7 segments took me 40 minutes to segment meticulously…
My RPVs were even worse, they were Korean voiced videos, each were about 10 minutes long and Korean. I think it took me several hours to finish the segmenting each one of them…
I know that I’m not the only one that finds segmenting challenging. As my mentor always told me “Anyone can segment but not everyone can become a segmenter”
On Korean live dramas, you have to finish your segmenting work flawlessly with less than 5% error (in terms of timing, synchronization and split/combines) within a hour, that is the maximum amount of time you could legitimately take.
For experienced segmenter team mates of mine, they could easily segment the 95%+ quality under 30 minutes or less.
I think when I was around 8000 segments, it took me about 55 minutes to segment a 10-minute part in Korean drama with not many dialogue…
By the time I was beyond 20000, I took about 40 minutes to segment a part.
Nowadays, I have about 45000 segment experience, I could segment a part in less than 30 minutes depending on the level of difficulty in the part.
Segmenting takes a lot of endurance, practice, and persistence to be efficient and successful at it. If you don’t think you can be a team player and segment with the same level of good quality and speed as others, I advise you to carefully rethink your decision to become a Korean segmenter on VIKI.
Please think before you act or you may regret your decision now in the future!
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*Long; there’s a fair amount of rambling or ranting or whatever you’d call it, but I do leave off with a question near the very end.
I do agree that segmenting well takes a decent amount of practice. You really have to keep doing it until you get a feel for it. That said, I don’t think it’s the technical bits that make segmenting difficult (that’s something you can learn “easily”, at least in my opinion) - it’s definitely the language barrier. Of course you can always gauge when to make cuts from voice cues and visible motions, etc. - but the more familiar you are with the language you’re segmenting, the easier and more likely you’ll make good (or appropriate) cuts. This is harder to learn, as it requires essentially learning a whole new language for some.
That said, I think I understand where people are coming from when they decide to segment some Korean MVs and then apply as K-drama segmenters. Viki’s biggest draw is probably the K-dramas, and lots of people like K-dramas. So understandably, they’d want to help with those as well.
Thing is, pretty much every Korean channel I’ve come across only wants segmenters with experience (which to me, mostly translates to “Seg101 grads”), usually with K-dramas. It feels a bit like a loop - that you can only work on K-dramas if you have before…but how can you ever work on one when you need to have already worked on one? So what is a person to do? MVs are the next (and only?) best thing to show that they can segment Korean things. Obviously, if the only segmenting you’ve ever done is on a few MVs, a lot of channels won’t hesitate to say no to you helping with segments. But I mean…
*Okay, so can I just pose a question to segmenters and managers, etc. working on K-dramas? How would someone who’d like to segment on K-dramas, without having had the chance to before, be able to do so? Or is it fair to just say, they won’t be able to?
It’s something that I just wonder about personally… I always see the same set of segmenters on K-dramas, and they’re pretty much all Seg101 (and Express) grads. And the sentiment I’ve held for awhile, is that, though those programs are great for relative newbies, it shouldn’t be a necessary pre-req for a segmenter to have. (Consider - there are how many people who’d like to help segment, and how many people to teach in Seg101?)
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