Could Viki please revoke this immediately? It’s a major issue that some dramas suddenly (since today, I suppose) have a 100-character limit per segment (instead of the usual 255 characters), which doesn’t even cover basic credits. Currently, you can actually avoid it by using the bulk translator, but this isn’t intended in my opinion and many contributors will struggle. This certainly does not affect all the shows, but for example dramas such as Filter, Sadistic Love or Rainkissed Fate (in some episodes at least, in others not).
For some shows, it reverted to 255 now, but some still face the issue. I hope the matter is solved swiftly.
However, if Viki considers this a good solution in regard to other websites, information will be lost. Especially, regarding on-screen texts, Variety Shows or explanations, which were featured in Viki’s previous advertisement as a feature after all.
There’s no way to cut this down accordingly without losing information.
I noticed that too earlier today when editing French subs on Sadistic Love, it’s really annoying because it’s hard to write everything with that limit when we have long words in some languages.
Currently, this affects old dramas partially too, which doesn’t allow us to edit them properly:
It’s from 2023. Enforcing a character limit on old shows especially would make it impossible (or at least a huge struggle) to work on them.
I just checked a few channels and can confirm this new 100 limit. Which is basically the start
of the end of subbing on Viki. Romanian is one of those languages that gets longer when subbing from English. Especially on costume dramas. 100 characters is just ridiculously too less.
Exactly @vikicommunity@vikisupport please do something not ever language can squeeze lines and is long line English. Some are way way more longer. If we cut it, it will not have any sense.
Polish is this same. Most English words translating on my language will not squeeze in 100 lines. It’s literally impossible because it will lose all meaning.
The quality of Viki subtitles is one of the main reasons people subscribe to the platform.
Even though I understand why they may want to implement a character limit, this would downgrade the quality of the subtitles and stop differentiating Viki from other platforms.
That aside, if they truly implement it, I hope it is done properly and only for series and movies that will be aired soon. It shouldn’t be applied to older dramas or films as that would create huge problems not only for the contributors but also for the platform. They should also consider other languages…
No matter what happens, I think an official announcement is needed from @vikicommunity
So … how quickly can people read?
It has been proved by recent studies that, as people become more used to subtitles, their reading speed increases, so the old character limit (42 per line and 2 lines per sub) is no longer relevant.
But viewers are not a homogeneous block, so their reading speed differs.
Most of the big platforms prefer catering to the lowest denominator (cater to the slowest readers) to be on the safe side.
Why? Because these huge platforms have very diverse content. Many of their users watch content from different countries but mostly content of their own country and language, and only occasionally foreign films and series, so they are not used to subtitles that much.
On the contrary, Viki viewers come here to consume East Asian content, and that’s all that is offered here. Some of the viewers might be Asian themselves, those people don’t need subtitles, so we’re not concerned about them. All the rest of us do. And we have become very good at reading them!
Therefore, Viki should not ape other platforms. It is a unique platform with unique viewers and has its own rules.
I would like to highlight an important observation by user piranna on that thread:
On NFLX, the subtitle duration on screen lasts less than Viki and a single-line sub is preferred over a 2-line sub. From this, they might use less seg combination and have to compress subtitles. The number of characters is limited by the segment duration.
Yes, a segment can last from 1 to 7 (or even 8) seconds, and obviously the character limit cannot be the same in all cases! If it’s one second, the limit should be even shorter. We usually test by running the video and making sure there’s enough time to read comfortably, otherwise we shorten the subtitle.
Some of the relevant studies:
English is shorter than most other languages
English words of Saxon/Norse/Germanic origin are short, one or two syllables. Those are an important part of the English lexicon (33%, but if you count the compounds and phrasal verbs they become much more than that!) So, typically, the average English text is shorter than a text of a Romance language and also Greek - and probably German as well. The same sentence, with the same number of words, will have more characters and be overall longer.
I know this as a professional translator for decades, and that’s why we all always quote a price counted by the page of the finished translation, not by the page of the original. In a book, for example, the finished translation from English was always a few pages more.
In subtitles, the percentage of short words is even more, because usually the longer, Latin derived words are the technical and specialized ones, or the most cultured ones. Daily conversation has a higher percentage of short, Norse words. Subtitles being mostly conversation (and not scholarly articles), have the most short words of any kind of translation.
This makes the new limits it a nightmare for Other Language teams. The English pre-subs will obviously be within the limits, but when the OL teams start translating them, they will immediately see the problem!
Is Viki really copying what other platforms do?
Not exactly. NFL says it is preferable to stick to a maximum of around 42 characters per line and 2 lines per subtitle, however it doesn’t enforce precise limits, except in languages like Korean where a character is a whole syllable and Chinese where a character is a whole word. But it must be noted that their segments are typically shorter too, and they don’t use extensions as we do (i.e. the subtitle stops exactly when the actor stops speaking, while on Viki, whenever possible, we have a 1-second extension to give the time to read comfortably).
So, is this a case of Viki “being more royal than the king”, as we say in Greek?
What will happen if Viki doesn’t listen to us?
We will tell the segmenters to chop the segments more (into smaller ones). That’s what will happen. They won’t mind, I think, because they will get greater contribution numbers.
Yes, I know, it’s cheating. But if you make us do it with absurd rules, we will find a way to do our job properly despite them.
Exactly.
Forced localization
The last point trangstar made is very important, because it will force us towards localization. We won’t be able to include any foreign words or concepts anymore, since there will be no way to explain what they are to the new viewers in a note. Instead, we’ll have to substitute with our local language’s words and concepts (which may not match at all) or with a generic word instead of a precise one.
“We will go to Lotte world” becomes “we will go to an amusement park” and
“He is running for the Blue House” becomes “he is running for president”.
All the unique Chinese idioms, proverbs and 4-character sayings will have to be substituted with English ones. Sometimes it’s not easy to remember the right English proverb, so what will happen is that the translation will just “explain” the meaning, which is not so impactful.
This is a huge change to the whole Viki translation style, which will completely lose its flavour and become flat and boring like all the other translations we have been mocking.
Counting the formatting is not fair!
I have been told that the html tags also count as characters. Thus, just putting italics means you lose 6 characters!
(Oh yes, they will reply to this that normally they wanted to put a limit of just 94 characters, but they were nice and put 100 to account for that… )
Disrespect
Viki has been saying how important volunteers are to them. Most of us know that this is just lip service.
We didn’t even deserve an official announcement about this. We just found out. Like being fired and finding out because you go to work and finding your things in a box and your computer pass…word changed.
The same thing has happened with Spanish, we are no longer allowed to translate… They want to limit us? The Spanish language contains many words, sentences are composed of many categories to make sense of what is being said. Now we can’t even do that?
I noticed this, too when translating from English to Finnish. It’s frustrating because the English subtitles are often three lines long, so it’s impossible to make proper translations of those with a limit of 100 characters. It makes the process so stressful and frustrating. I honestly see no point in this change, even if the segments were shorter and the translating was possible. I’d really like to know the reasons behind this change.
Viki is turning into a cheap copycat. Maybe soon they will even change their color to match the other streamings… If your precious viewers can’t read the subs properly, you should bring them dubbed content instead of cutting our character number. But let’s be honest, you don’t have the money, right?
Wow, this is unbelievable. What more does Viki want from us?
We’ve followed every request so far. First, we took on dramas with English presubs; then, dramas with English and Portuguese presubs; and later, dramas with English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French presubs. And now, this?
We get that changes are necessary, but we expect those changes to actually improve things. Instead, the recent updates feel like they’re telling volunteers, “We don’t need you anymore, time to go!” If that’s really what’s happening, they should at least tell us directly.
All we ask is that they give us a heads-up on these sudden changes and do a proper market study to make sure any updates benefit everyone involved.
Unfortunately, I know that the bosses won’t be out here engaging with us, they just give orders, and Viki employees have no choice but to follow them. It’s really sad to see the Rakuten Viki platform change so much, losing the unique qualities that once set it apart from other platforms, and made us proud.
Anyway, I’ll keep enjoying this hobby that introduced me to amazing people and great friendships, while I wait for this story to come to its end.
The worst part is that the limit is on the everything even old drama. So imagine someone who dose only big Chinese drama on Viki and need to adjust them. I just hope it will only show red in editor not cut lines in real time. It’s hilarious what’s going on. If Viki don’t want subtitles from fans for Free they can say it openly, not circle around the Bush. Because each change is a struggle to us, and for some language squeeze in 100 is impossible, be cause English words have different meaning everywhere.
I’m really struggling with editing tonight—this new 100-character limit and the one-break-per-segment rule are making things so hard. I’m going to have to ask CS to chop a segment they worked hard to combine during A&C. It feels like we’re going backward.
Off the top of my head, here are some of the immediate impacts:
Variety shows will likely lose a lot of on-screen text that we used to subtitle.
Translating from Chinese/Korean/Japanese will be even harder—100 characters just isn’t enough to preserve meaning and give viewers enough reading time.
OLs may struggle with translations too, especially since their spelling doesn’t align with standard English.
We’ll lose the ability to include Translation Notes (TNs)—one of the things that made Viki subtitles unique and informative.
Segmenting teams will have to rework timing again and only combine where absolutely necessary.
We may end up with a single sentence split awkwardly into 4–5 disjointed segments.
I know we’ll all adjust eventually, but it’s frustrating. We’ve spent so much time developing editing guidelines for English subs—only to have them tossed aside.
All I can say is: even if the changes don’t make sense right now, let’s try to stay positive and adapt. It’s okay to vent—we all need to—but let’s keep enjoying the parts of this hobby we love, for as long as we can.
No, nobody informed us before the change was introduced. I’m absolutely shocked. How are we supposed to fit in within such a ridiculous limit? I translate into Polish, we tend to have long words. I bet a lot of people who do translations here as a hobby will now give up since it will be too difficult for them.
100 characters is really too little. Also, the formatting takes away a lot of space (8 characters per cursive, 4 per break, 12 for song notes!) I hope Viki changes their mind about it. On the other hand, I sometimes encounter segments that are so long that the text doesn’t fit even within the 255 characters! It would be wonderful if there was a middle ground for this. 255 is way too much, 100 too little.
So I’m back after testing what’s going on, and here is what I noticed:
we now have 2 warnings:
for the 100 limit (that includes the formatings )
the use of more than 1 break (which shows that Viki employees have no idea about their work because there are situations where we are obliged to use more breaks, e.g., dialog between 3 or more people)
despite having these red warnings, the entire subtitle is still saved (even if the segment remains red)
when I edited +100 characters segments I got the warning but I didn’t cut the subtitle under 100 and it was still saved - but the segments remained red
I checked the Viki player, and the subtitles are displayed integrally.
If these warnings are just warnings, without actually cutting the subtitles, then I have no problem with them. I will ignore them. But if this is just the beginning of the actual limitation, well… I will think about it like Viki is trying to send us away without actually saying this to us directly.
I hope the matter is solved swiftly.
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