Hey,
What would be your tips or methods for people who will be confronted to this situation one day?
@irmar has a really excellent method to repair segments! I tried it and it works very well!
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Can you share it here with us? Thank you.
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What to do if you have to merge segments where there are already subtitles in one or more language already done, so you cannot delete them.
It is a bit laborious and it needs a patient and cooperative CM. (If you are the CM, then no problem!)
Supposing you want to merge segment A with segment B.
- You extend segment A to take up almost all the space, leaving segment B very very small.
- You move the text of segment B to the end of segment A. But since you cannot leave segment B blank, you put an asterisk on it. Do this on all segments to be merged.
Note: You extend segment A so that it covers almost all the dialogue that it has to cover, and so that viewers, if they happen to watch before the job is complete, are not bothered by the asterisk on the small one, since they will only see it fleetingly. - While doing this, note down on a document the timings of those segments with asterisks.
- Tell all language moderators to do 2). Wherever they see an asterisk in English, move the text of segment B at the end of segment A and put an asterisk on segment B. They can easily find which they are in Bulk Translator, with CTRL+F, by putting an asterisk in the find field.
- Tell the CM to delete all segments with only an asterisk. To make his/her job easier, provide a list with all the timings, because in Segment Timer there is no Find feature.
- When this is done, go back to Segment Timer and, with your list of the timings, extend segment A to fill the gap formed by the deletion of segment B.
(Technically, if the CM is a trained segmenter, he/she could easily do that while deleting - but you don’t want to be too demanding so you should never suggest it if he/she doesn’t suggest it. )
As you see, it’s not quick and easy. But in cases where it has to be done, it can be done.
In some instances where I was CM, I did the whole thing on my own, replacing the subtitles in all languages, deleting, joining and so on. Now you know why there is a badge for languages like Romanian and for Indonesian on my profile!
Another time, I asked the CM to make me Spanish moderator as well, to be able to do that (and then Spanish people started writing to me to join the team, LOL!)
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Why not just put the same subtitle text in both segments for the language where you would want to merge the segments. This way there is nothing to delete and it doesn’t interfere with the other languages where they may feel the two segments works better for their language than one. In the end where the same subtitle is in both segments, the viewer doesn’t know the difference … they just see the longer subtitle.
The same could be done for any of the other languages that wish to do it.
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You mean the two instances are smoothly joined and the viewer sees it as one longer segment?
Then indeed it could be done.
But if you do this, there is no way for the other languages to easily find with CTRL+F all of these instances. You will give them your list of minutes and seconds and then they have to laboriously go find each one by scrolling.
Of course, it’s a bit more work for them but a lot less work for us, the segmenters, and zero work for the CM, so I suppose CMs would second that!
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Could it be possible to save the subtitles into a file and delete all the segments to start all over again?
If the segmentation isn’t too bad that would mean more work for the people who would have to add the translation into the empty segments from the file
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Yes if you are CM you can press delete all (I prefer this method)
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You’re right, it depends on how bad is the segmentation. I just wanted to know if it was possible.
How can you save the subtitles?
Uh I don’t think it does. You would probably need a 3rd party program to rip or you copy paste bulk translate.
The subs in one show were pretty crummy so I really wanted to just press delete. The sound wave was really off too. It was so visually disconcerting.
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That’s why I’m really, really slow when I seg. I’m super conscious that all the following language teams will be stuck with my bad segments forever.
@irmar Although I only had to correct other people’s segments in NSSA, why is step 1 necessary? Since you’ll fix the segments in step 5 anyway, why adjust them twice? Why spend even more time and also risk glitches with overlapping segments that can’t be deleted (because they have subs in them)? It already seems trying enough… I’m possibly missing something obvious. 
Because, from the moment you put the asterisks until the moment the CM deletes the asterisk segments and you go back to extend segment A, there might be some time, usually days. CMs are busy people! In the meanwhile, subbers (of languages other than the ones already there) can already start subbing. Also, there might be viewers who are watching the show. And if they found that the voice is not synchronized to the segment they might be disconcerted. That’s why I prefer segment A to be as long as possible and segment B (with the asterisk) as small as possible. Sometimes, if there is a pause after segment B, I move it until segment A has all the extension it needs and segment B with the asterisk falls on the pause. In that case, when it is deleted, no other work is needed.
It’s one thing to see - as a viewer - an asterisk fleetingly, for a fraction of a second, when you barely notice it, and another for the asterisk to be there for 2, 3 seconds, while people are talking. The viewer might feel that there is some dialogue which hasn’t been translated.
(Overlapping segments only happen after a deletion which hasn’t been yet saved. As a segmenter who is not a CM I cannot delete segments with subs, so it cannot happen to me even if I try. And when I can delete, I make sure to press “save” after each deletion, to avoid the dreaded red boxes).
Of course anybody can tweak this method to his/her own liking. I just wrote what works for me.
But yours was a very good observation, so I edited my original post to include the explanation.
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Thank you for explaining, it makes sense.
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I don’t know why I didn’ think of this 0.0 Like now that you say it, I feel quite like a dummy not having thought of this before (personal feeling when I read your post).
Thanks for the advice !