Fighting Becky!!! I am cheering you on! p(^_^)q
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Hello Amy! I just saw your post, I was read it and it’s very helpful, I’m on the seg 101 project, but your tips also help me. Thank you!
And in the activity, if I can’t translate korean-english I can’t participate?
Hi Janice:
Nice to meet you. If my memory serves me correctly, you are Roxie’s student, correct?
Since it’s a segger and subber challenge, therefore there would be two of each levels, I hope.
I’m personally in charge of Level 3, hence I’m going to create a set of Subber questions, also a set of Segger questions.
Your question here does raise a concern, I will consult Yolswels about it and get back to you through PM or on here.
Could you please tell me what’s your favorite cartoon character too??? I would need it to surprise you in the near future when you graduate Seg101.
Stay in touch,
Amy…
P.S. There is also a Fastest Segger Challenge only to Seggers, maybe you could try and participate in that too. I think participation is all that matters =)
[quote=“Janice0317, post:113, topic:135”]And in the activity, if I can’t translate korean-english I can’t participate?
[/quote]
You should be fine doing the activity. The one line they want translated is repeated all throughout the video - and I think the point is just to listen and figure out which part. It’s a subtitle hunt after all. I suspect that’s the sort of thing they’ll be doing. Good luck to you ^^
Nice to meet you too Amy. Yes, you memory sevmrves perfectly, Rocie is my mentor (: She is great!
Well, then I leave it in your hands, let me know please.
… mmm my favorite cartoon? I don’t know, I hadn’t thought of that, I’ve seen what you do, it’s very nice of you! (:
P.S. Yes, thank you, I already said to Roxie, and I’m on the competition now, I don’t know how far I can go. But, as you said, the participation is that matters.
I’ll be in touch 
Hello Scircus.
Yeah I’d like to participate, also, I know what said the song for some videos on internet that have the lyrics. But I prefer to ask. For any thing.
There are still two days to send the request. So that’s why I asked.
Thank you scircus, hope I have it.
Hi Janice:
I’ve discussed it with Yolswels, she said all of the lyrics are practically repeated. Therefore, as long as you are perceptive, you would be able to find what is missing from what is already existing there. Segmenting errors would be deliberate and noticeable too, therefore, don’t worry too much about it. I’m sure you are going to do fine.
Janice0317, 0317 = St. Patricks Day, Hence I decided to create this to celebrate you Seg101 Graduation.
Welcome to the Seg101 Family as a Seg101 Graduate and Tutor. We are colleagues now =)
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Hey Scircus:
You are invited to take on the 4th anniversary challenges too. There are different levels for you to pass and at the end we have prizes sponsored by VIKI. I heard last year we even had celebrity autographed t-shirt as the grand prize. Come and join in the fun!
Amy…p(^_^)q
Hello Everyone:
Please come and participate in the Seg101 4th anniversary Avatar Design Contest, Fastest Segger Challenge and Subbing/Segging Scavenger Hunt!
The deadline for submission to Scavenger Hunt is October 14 (tomorrow)
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-ZP0M-kNS2Xe78SEi-LD7pYqetcf9gf_9nhJdgbGcjE/viewform
Please Check Out This Page for more Details!!!
http://www.viki.com/tv/2048c-the-seg-101-express
Hello Everyone:
This is Amy here again answering Reader’s questions. Recently I’ve received PMs inquiring about the segmenter who needs to be QC-checked on Korean Dramas and would hoard 3 parts to herself. They wondered if she felt guilty for her errors at all and did she improve over time.
Today, I had the occasion to stop by a Saturday-Sunday Korean Drama Channel today and noticed the “segmenter” of our interest was in action today…
Are you all wondering whether she improved over the past weeks?
Let’s examine her work together shall we?
First, let me introduce you to a screenshot I took between 32:45 to 33:15. Please see if you could spot the same errors as I did…
Original Picture to prove it was taken from Part 4 of Episode 6
This is the enlarged screenshot without the errors indicated…Do you see an issue here just with your naked eyes? To me they are quite noticeable even if you don’t have the sound.
Below is what I found and indicated using different color boxes…
As you can see there are Red, Blue, Green, Pink and Orange boxes indicating different types of errors, let me explain them to you thoroughly.
RED = early segments, you would see the subtitle before hearing the sound. It means you would actually be able to predict what they are going to say next, spoiling the fun for the viewers.
BLUE = late segments, you hear the sound before seeing the subtitle. It means you would hear sound and wonder what was said in the dialogue because you couldn’t see timely-subtitles about what they said.
PINK = combine, you should join two segments together as one for complete sentence. That way the sentence would be more meaningful, flow better and have longer on-screen time to be read.
GREEN = Mini-gaps, they are the ones that causes flashes on screen. We must extend the ends to next segments beginning to have better flow from subtitle to subtitle.
ORANGE = Endings too short. This means the subtitle disappears abruptly after the voice is gone. You would have trouble knowing what’s going on if you are a slow reading or the dialogue is too fast.
Below is a video recording of what was seen using a Pause-checking method. I didn’t adjust the segments as it’s not courteousness to adjust other people’s work as mentioned in a previous post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rTeQmiIoEA
Please try to be more careful and refrain from making the same types of segmenting-errors as the user above did.
Regards,
Amy…
Hi Chizzy:
I just want to say if several experienced segmenters gave her constructive feedback for improvement but she treats your PM as thin air, not willing to improve or change, just simply deleting the PM and pretend nothing happened, would they ever improve at all?
That’s all I have to say as well. Feel free to delete your message as my messages will never be deleted and only more would be added.
I suspect you’re a perfectionist, Amy…?
But since you invited us to critique alongside you, I wanted to throw in some comments / personal views on the errors as it were.
Early segments
I think it depends on who you ask, what “early” is. Most of those early segs are maybe 0.1 or 0.2 seconds early, if we go by the start of the sound wave. If that’s the case, then I guess all my segments are early. Though I don’t think those few tenths of a second are particularly noticeable either way (so long as you’re consistent), I’ve always felt that cutting just about at the wave felt late.
Combining segments
Obviously, not all segmenters are very familiar with the language they segment. Of course there are certain voice cues, but I suspect it’s still rather easy to segment into the middle of a sentence.
In the case of continuous dialogue, I think it’s actually a lot better to cut too many segments than not enough (better safe than sorry, as it goes). As it is, if the translator felt the two segments would work better off as one, they could easily translate a full sentence and write the same translation into both segments. (And to the audience, it would look like one continuous thing.) But it’s not as easy for them to split a segment if they felt the translation worked better split up. If that makes sense.
Gaps and endings
This bit is more in general and not specific to this user’s cuts.
I’ll admit I have a difficult time deciding whether to cut and leave a gap or extend the segment sometimes. Often, it’s easy to decide. But there are times when extending it makes it feel like the sub is onscreen for too long. And cutting it creates a small-ish gap. So I go by what I feel at the time…and I’ll often have gaps.
Again, I think it comes down to opinion whether the gaps are distracting or not. For me, I’m okay with them. I’d rather a bit of “blinking” than a lingering subtitle.
On a related note to blinking subs. Gaps of 0.2 or more seconds don’t bother me much. But I’ve noticed in segmenting that, depending on how you cut, you can get a certain “blinking” of the subs. In the timer, you can’t really tell unless you check the segments and watch the gray sub box blink. Has to do with the segs not being joined up or something; I pretty much have to always manually join up my segs to make sure this doesn’t happen. I think this is more common and more work to check for.
Maybe you don’t encounter it personally…? I think I’ve seen that you generally do a long segment and split it along the way? That keeps the flashes from showing up, but I could never get used to segging like that. (So I stick to my double-tap space at each cut and readjust every time >.<)
And then just on a side note. You always talk about segmenting etiquette and being courteous. I think that extends to outside of the segment timer. You call a lot of people out, and sometimes it’s deserved (I assume). But I don’t know, it does seem kind of rude? to pick out a user and put them on display like this. Sure, use them as an example of your methods, but I don’t think it’s necessary to keep saying “so-and-so user is bad at segmenting because…” - I don’t think telling us who the user is helps to teach about segmenting.
If you have a problem with someone’s segmenting, tell it to them. Keep telling it to them. Tell them in different ways until they understand and/or change. Just my two cents.
Scircus… according to your previous post, you mentioned that early subs are irriatating to viewers. However, in the example pictures there, the segments were not only early by 0.1 to 0.2 seconds. Many were early by 0.4 to 0.6 seconds (rough eye estimate of about 5mm)
About your segments, I don’t want to be considered “calling out your name” I will provide you with personalized feedback through PM if and only if you are able to accept it.
Combining segments… even if you are not familar with the language, rise and fall of voice is already a good estimate for where sentence begins and ends. not everyone is able to hold their breath and talk for 30 seconds straight. Your translator theory, if the segments were not continuous cuts, would they appear as one to you?
And if your theory works, I guess something like this could be subbed many times so several segments look as one…
Gaps and endings… I personally extend about 1 to 1.2 second extra after the voice ended. that way it would have sufficient screen presence on screen. Gaps less than 0.3sec should be closed up in my humble opinion. If you look closely at my segmenting, despite I use continuous cuts, I trim out extra time for segment endings that are too long.
About your side note, did I explicitly mention the name in question in my paragraph writing in anyway? I guess the answer is clear as I never explicitly mentioned user names and how their segmenting is bad with their name included along the way.
I’ve personally PMed the users several times who’s segmenting needs improvement and offering to help them out. If the issue is serious and expands across different channels, I sometimes reflect this issue to VIKI. My goal here is not to tell you to criticize them but more along the lines of quality checking your own segmenters on your licensed channels, particularly the Korean ones that are going to be sold to Netflix or Hulu in the future.
Viki is not a playground, it’s a place for professional volunteers. If you are not willing to provide meaningful contribution to do a decent job, just simply here to kill boredom, I don’t think segmenting is the route for you. I’m saying this as a personal opinion because I think segmenting does require a lot of effort and time to practice and perform well on live-projects. Segmenters must be able to look after themselves and not assume other segmenters or QC-check would clean up after your work. It’s both tiresome and time-consuming. In addition, Viki would be willing to negotiate license for hardworking and well-prepared teams. However if your team fails to deliver good segments and subs, you are less likely going to acquire license for your channels in the future. The broadcasting stations just doesn’t feel convinced that their drama or show would be well represented to the public by your team’s work. I hope you are able to understand our concern here.
Scircus, if you have any other personal concerns unrelated to segmenting techniques, please PM me instead. I would be glad to respond to you across PM about it.
Pardon, I was calculating wrong. But still, a decent number of early ones were like 0.3/0.4 seconds “early”. I’d be okay with that. Past that, I’d have to watch something to really decide how much it bothered me. So yes, some of her segs were a bit too early.
[quote=“AmyPun, post:126, topic:135”]Your translator theory, if the segments were not continuous cuts, would they appear as one to you?
[/quote]
That’s why I made it a point to say the cuts were continuous. And assuming continuous dialogue, cuts should be continuous. If they’re not continuous, it wouldn’t work.
Well if the segments fall where certain voice cues end up, theoretically yes, you could sub it by repeating the translations in different segments. Though surely you knew I wasn’t talking about something as crazy as that.
If you have a sentence, you can cut it as one segment. Good. If you happen to cut it into two segments, it’s not really that much trouble to still be able to sub it properly. And mind you, people’s voices can rise and fall within one thought… So it’s understandable to cut a bit too much. I’m not saying that everyone should cut extremely frequently; I’m saying that one extra cut is better than not enough cuts.
Amy, just because you didn’t type it out doesn’t mean you’re not making a bit of a spectacle of the user. The way you lead into talking about the user, boxing their name, taking little jabs at her. The fact that you even felt the need to include her name at all. I don’t know how much you meant to pick at her, but that’s how it comes off.
You could have easily left off the image with her name altogether. Or blocked it out or something, as it doesn’t seem to hold relevance to the point you’re making in the post.
I may be wrong about part of this, but I’m pretty sure Hulu is affiliated with Dramafever and gets their subs from DF. I suspect Netflix follows that as well.
There are a lot of things I agree with you on, Amy. But there are certainly just as many I don’t agree with, as I’m sure you’ve seen. I definitely started on this discussion talking about segmenting, but I always seem to get sidetracked.
Sure thing. I don’t know why I always end up semi-off topic on this thread OTL
oh wow this is so good~ made me realized that I’ve been doing it wrong 
thank you for the hard work in writing this up~
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Sweetdreams:
Thanks for your kind support for my posts and advice on segmenting. I really hope that this discussion board could help out all the segmenters out there that know or not know they need help with their segmenting. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about the material delivered here. I would be glad to help you out.
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Amy… your post and the discussion we had in here, are very helpful. Some may not want to join SEG101, some would like to. But all in all, reading these discussion, hopefully readers would understand, segmenting is a foundation of a good show thus do it properly. Honestly, before you post all those guidelines, I’m searching like crazy of any sources how to do a good segmenting. And so far…this is the most meticulous one (apart of my mentor who absolutely always give a great guidance as well.) Please keep it on. Just like I get more understand with 'the art of gaps"…(merge the gaps or leave them otherwise the segments turn out too long that make the viewers tired of seeing the lines as they stays too long on screen.)…Your writing and video links are like my literature books for references… Thanks Amy!!!
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Thanks BeckyK for your kind support. Despite there are negative opinions from many people I know or not know about how I handle things here, my sincere and original intent here is to help, not to start verbal arguments about Seg101 or Viki users.
To Dedicated Readers of my Discussion Board:
I really don’t want others to abuse this discussion board attacking Seg101 because attacking them is exactly the same as attacking my family. I know that sometimes the way I try to expose issues isn’t the best way either. As the “Chef” from Pasta (K-Drama) always said: “if you keep quiet and don’t tell someone how he/she can improve his/her cooking, it is like telling that person to remain on the same level all his/her life and not to improve.” I think the same principle could be applied to segmenting as well.
As one of my friends once told me "every person needs to accept criticism and suggestions for improvement and can’t respond with ‘oh well’ or ‘whatever’. Everyone should open for improving themselves!"
Viki is gaining a lot more new users who try to help out on channels without really knowing the way Viki works. I get a lot of newbies just coming and going on the channel or not really knowing how things work and demanding the segment editor to be unlocked for him or her to segment. I feel sorry for them but I just don’t have the time to teach everyone who wants to learn segmenting one-on-one. That is why I try to give segmenting advice here. However, advice would be meaningless if you don’t know how to distinguish good from bad…Therefore, I decided to list some examples for you to examine.
Below are some feedback from one of my readers:
With a lot of the things Scircus pointed out such as early segments,
combining segments, I think that problem gradually goes away when you
put the effort into trying to review your own work and through
experience. If you are proud and honor your own work, you will always
want to improve and this improvement will diminish any of those
problems such as the length of segments. I think getting the perfect
length for segments is really only seen in rookie stage. I sure had
that problem when I first started, not sure whether it was too long or
too short and not sure whether to combine things or split them out.
But once you segment more and learn from others, you will get a good
“feel” as to where to cut and where the sentences should end and
whether the segment was too long or short. As a viewer on Viki as
well, I get a general feel of when the segments may seem to flashy or
stay on the screen for too long, so I will keep that in mind and make
sure I segment so that these problems don’t appear.I think it’s just whether you are dedicated to making your work
perfect or not.
I will try to be firm, assertive and rational with my actions and criticism in the future. I will try my best to not point out names to avoid resentment from others. However, I’m pretty sure people would be able to trace back to who the user was without me saying it out. Humans are “curious in nature”.
To all the readers out there, thanks for your continuous support. I will try my best to continue sharing my segmenting tips and discoveries with you all.
Thanks for reading,
Amy…
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Hello All PS Segmenters:
Seg101 wants YOU to come and participate in our Seg101 Fastest Segmenter Challenge.
There are still 4 spots remaining for the PS category.
If you want to test both your speed and accuracy at Segmenting, this is the game especially designed for you!
The event will take place next week between October 21 to 25, 2013.
If you are interested, please consult this page below…
http://www.viki.com/tv/2048c-the-seg-101-express
Or consult RoxieHar for further details
Hello All Page Designers out there:
Please come and join Seg101 4th Anniversary Avatar Design Contest. There are Prizes to be won, courtesy from VIKI. Don’t miss out this opportunity to join in the fun…
There is only 6 days left before the deadline of submission!
For more details, please see the description below:
For further questions and details, please visit our Seg101 Anniversary Homepage!