We support volunteers and do not accept bad presubs!
12 Likes
Speed over quality⌠What a bad decision!
9 Likes
We donât accept bad presubs and support volunteers !
8 Likes
We do not accept bad preubs and support volunteers
8 Likes
We do not accept bad presubs and support volunteers
8 Likes
I suggest moderators post this information about pre-subs in the Comment section of their dramas, so that viewers are also made aware that what they are seeing when they watch the drama early on is not our work.
They could even put it in the very first subtitle of each episode, and then remove this after the editing is done.
And maybe also direct them to this thread here so that they can voice their opinion as well. They are also concerned, they deserve to know.
9 Likes
@deval_chloe
@captncoco
and to all others who took the time to give examples of the bad subs in various languages,
Thank you for taking the time to give these terrible examples which show the level of competency of the paid subbers. The messing up of simple noun translations in examples given by chloe lead me to conclude this is not machine translation but simply incompetent human translation. I know from the mixing of metaphors in English that that is human and not machine error.
2 Likes
We have gotten to the point that AI is better than mediocre humans.
Machine translation is far from perfect. However it has very specific kinds of mistakes: for instance mixing up genders when translating from a language like English or, worse still, Korean, which not always make it easy to specify whether the person is male of female. But I agree with you that simple noun translations should have been correct if made by machine.
2 Likes
Havenât spoken French in many years ( left Quebec over 50 years ago)but even I spotted the errors. Also was suprised they used informal speech although in context it may have been ok.
3 Likes
It is hard enough for a human to understand some of these accents of the actors in dramas. I can understand why a machine gets it wrong. A Thai drama had the book âCharlotteâs Webâ and the English teacher said the pigâs name was Wilbert. Anyone who reads the book knows his name is Wilbur. She then made a horrendous try at âthe slop in the trough.â The machine simply left it blank.
I am amazed at what Translation Editors on Viki can decipher! No machine will ever come to that level. Remember that machines learn only what we humans program into them; therefore, they will always be one step behind us, maybe several steps.
I have edited some dramas with actors speaking a little Spanish, French or German. I donât trust those pre-subs! They are as inaccurate as English pre-subs. I ask a Spanish or French Moderator or my editor friend who speaks German to give me the translation.
I am Channel Manager of a C-drama called âSweet Games.â The Portuguese Team translated those episodes as soon as we had Quality Check from the Chief Segmenter. They worked faster than my English Team. We did final edit of all the English pre-subs in 5 weeks. They subbed without Portuguese pre-subs in about 19 days!
My English teams working at full speed can have final edit of an episode in 2-3 days. The Portuguese Team can do the same episode in half the time! Itâs shameful that we phase out our vital translators in Portuguese, Spanish and French.
I know that viewers want translations right away. For the on-air dramas, the episodes load only 2-4 a week anyway. People complain about waiting a week for the next episodes. Why rush to give them atrocious, upsetting pre-subs in Spanish, Portuguese and French? Our volunteer translators can subtitle much better than any machine or AI!
We do not want subbers to use Google Translate or other AI methods, yet Viki is turning to AI translations of Spanish, Portuguese and French subtitles. I understand that it is difficult for Viki. I have looked at their staff recruitment. All around the world, there is a shortage of people who want to work.
But will OL pre-subs help keep volunteer workers or drive them away? What happens when Viki has lost Henrri and Eun Soo Lee to fix the awful Spanish pre-subs, and there are only machines left to translate? Will all apartments turn into streets, and chickens turn into grilled salad?
10 Likes
Portuguese seems to be the only one translated directly from Chinese, although Chinese apparently doesnât mention the âpaperâ mentioned in Portuguese: Ă tĂŁo difĂcil assinar um papel? (Is it so difficult to sign a paper?)
2 Likes
The segmenting can be all over the place too. Like then they segment a part of a song, then they donât, same goes with text on screen. One drama has super long segments, the other has super short and for yet an other one the segments are either too early or to late. Yesterday I even spotted a translated segment but I didnât hear them even say anything. I was in debate of just deleting it or just leave it there. Decided to leave it because clearly Viki wanted something there?!
And although I donât really pay attention to the subs when Iâm checking the segments some donât seem to make much sense or I go like nobody would translate it like that.
And I notice that the segmenting, or at least that what is left of it, goes slower then when we just did it from scratch. I think the need we kind of felt to get it done fast so the sub team could start is gone because itâs already subbed and watchable for viewers anyway. Not to our standards but itâs there.
3 Likes
We now have the need to get it done so that we can get rid of the disaster subs ASAP. It does go slower, of course, since we have extra work.
But ummm⌠âwatchableâ? 
Not in my book.
3 Likes
Today this article was posted on a Dutch news site. Itâs to much for me to translate but the headline is âSubtitlers warn that AI generated subs are bad for the quality of a languageâ. It talks about professional subbers who notice a decline of the quality of subs provided because many streaming services use AI. They urge streaming services and such to use less machine translations although thatâs cheaper. They also mention in the article that bad subs are bad for language learning and children/people have more difficulty to learn Dutch and English correctly this way. Not only because the subs are bad but also because the subs are going to fast so people cannot read them which leads to people only focus to that part of the screen and have a hard time following whatâs going on.
7 Likes
This part of what they say seems strange to me. The pre-subs typically are shorter than the ones we make. Our TEs always have to add stuff that was skipped.
Unless this is because they donât add extensions to segments.
Then whatâs the point of shortening the subs (potentially missing important nuances in information), if you then deprive viewers from a chance for more reading time wherever this is possible?
2 Likes
I assume itâs a reply on the article posted and what I sometimes notice on TV is that the subtitle is gone as soon as the person stops speaking or the timing is a bit off. I think itâs always a battle between providing a subtitle that contains all the important nuances and the flow/readability of the subtitles. That was already a thing before AI came around. I think they mean it has become a bigger problem with AI.
2 Likes
Interesting. Maybe Viki invests more in Portuguese than in other languages.
2 Likes
The Portuguese have always been the worst sub-whiners. I know because I am, in every team, the one who takes care of the cleaning of Timed Comments. At the time when subtitles were made by volunteers, you very rarely saw a French or German or Italian user complaining about the subtitles not being yet there. But the Portuguese were terrible, followed by the Spanish.
Maybe thatâs why they found a Portuguese translator who knows Chinese. To be able to have them as quickly as possible.
3 Likes
That is what they should be looking for in the first place.
4 Likes
Yet, if now suddenly, the Dutch become major sub-whiners, I donât think it will make any difference. Viki will just ignore them. Brazilians are Vikiâs main source of income so their whining is effective.
2 Likes