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General Discussion
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What kind of salary should that be when a VIKI pass costs between 3-5 $ / month?

I’d say everyone who’s part of an ongoing show would spend more than 1 hour / month for VIKI…

So when I compare these 3-5 $ with the amount of time I spend for VIKI my time/commitment vs result/reward would be much higher (better) when I’d spend these 5 $ instead of working for free…

(For me there isn’t even any reason to spend these 5 $ because the Chinese dramas are available for free with English subs anyway; provided by the official pages of the Chinese studios… and guess what - you only ‘have’ to pay for quicker access, when you wait a bit you can watch a whole drama for free in high quality…)

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@feyfayer

Who knows if they wouldn’t use us volunteers to indirectly train their software… or already doing so…

I know that some gaming studios had background machine learning software for / during PVP. Some gaming studios now have a AI that is able to beat even pro gaming teams in some cases (probably because the AI has no miscommunicating issues and always hits a shot).

Depending on the game they also use the trained AI software to simulate a more human-like feeling when you play vs AI but want some kind of ‘PVP’ feeling.

(I think within games it’s okay because the final aim of the devs is not to remove PVP but offering PVP-like feeling for players who are afraid to play PVP and prefer playing vs AI).

For solo content games it’s also interesting because of the illusion of NPCs that are ‘alive’ or behave more natural.

@mirjam_465

In that case we would need several AI agents. One trained in Chinese costume dramas, one trained in modern Japanese dramas, and so on

Exactly.

And this would cost Viki lots of money. We may work for free, data scientists don’t.

I know. That’s why I see this new ‘feature’ as some kind of Kuhhandel…

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I need to agree with this.

I have already seen this example somewhere in the discussions here a long time ago but I would like to give it again.

Would the whinners who want fast subs in any language accept this?

English: “Honey, you’re home?”
Portuguese: “Mel, Voce esta em casa?”
Spanish: "Miel, ¿Estás en casa?
Romanian: “Miere, Ești acasă?”
Dutch: “Lieve schat, Je bent thuis?”
French: "Mon chéri, Tu es à la maison?

All of them literally translating honey to :honey_pot:

As a viewer, paid or not, whinner or not, I won’t like dishes floating on my screen.

I am sure, a whinner will not like literally translating idoms and certain phrases.

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Actually, the Dutch and French ones are almost correct, except for some word order and grammar issues, but the other ones are indeed talking about the thing bees produce. :wink:

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This is one of the things AI, and especially RL, can be great at. And it can be great at lots of other things as well. But translation, especially our kind of translation, is not one of them. No matter how much it improves, there will always be something missing.
So I’d say let’s just use AI for the things it’s good at and leave the things that need a human touch up to the humans.

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Google can translate that to German without problems. It’s quite a simple common sentence. Google T also offers manual/user suggestions etc. to make the tool better, but many dramas have way more complex & complicated sentences like this one.

I tried:

“Mel, Voce esta em casa?”

“Miel, ¿Estás en casa?”

“Miere, Ești acasă?”

“Lieve schat, Je bent thuis?” => additional ‘Lieber’

"Mon chéri, Tu es à la maison? => ‘Mein’

too and GT also gives the correct German version so I assume, that Portuguese uses the same nickname like English while German uses a different one than English - but to be sure - let’s see what our native speakers say?

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I got: Iubito, ești acasă?

I’d be shocked to hear if they’d really call their sweethearts Mel, Miel or Miere! I know English does too, but somehow that sounds less weird.

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Clarification. On many currently airing Korean to English modern dramas, we complete at least two edits of the English subtitles within 12-36 hours of the upload. Historical dramas (saguk) may take a few hours longer because of less common vocabulary and less interest among subbers. It’s been my usual experience that Spanish usually completes the episode within 24 hours of the release to other languages and Portuguese is usually complete soon after Spanish.
---- Most Korean to English subbers at viki reside in the USA, although I have worked with Korean to English subbers residing in Canada, South Korea, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Rumania, Netherlands and very occasionally in South America.
— Regarding viewers watching dramas on other websites. Perhaps viewers in other languages would like to share information on the availability of K-drama of C-drama on other sites without specifically naming them – eg. are they free or paid for? Do they produce the subs themselves or are they pirating the subs from other sites?
— Watching on other sites. I am wondering if watching Kdrama or Cdrama in other languages is like my experience in the US – for currently broadcast dramas when viki has a US license, I don’t know of any other site which has a drama legally for the US for English.
For dramas for which neither viki nor NF has a US license, I occasionally try to watch on “pirate sites” which don’t pay for English subtitling but steal subs from other sites. I know it is a frustrating experience with frozen streaming, slow downloads, and multiple attempts to download malware, porn, and apps I don’t need.
I don’t know why any viki subscriber in her right mind would go to these sites to watch in any language if the subs will become available in a day or two at viki.

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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

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I know how it works. Yes, the “machine” is developed and trained by humans. And if the human makes a mistake, this mistake will be taken over by the machine, which of course would make things worse.
But even if all the input is in essence correct, the machine might still use it in the wrong way or in the wrong context. It lacks instinct and intuition. It will always go by the book, assuming the book is right, not considering nuances, exceptions, special situations, etc.

Then don’t you think it’s time to recruit more Spanish subtitlers and/or set up a training system? This may not help on short-term, but it would in the long-run.

The only Rival Site I’ve seen recently did say: “translated by so and so”, both in Dutch and in English. Though I must say that in some cases I was annoyed by the quality of the subtitles, but I guess that’s because that site also prefers speed above quality.

I do get the dilemma. But I’m holding my breath for the outcome if Viki goes through with this.

However, even though we don’t fully agree, I’m glad to see that we both are commited to Viki and our (and other) languages. :slight_smile:
Sleep well! :star:

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Although I don’t agree with the delivery method, I do see your point, and I believe that your heart is in the right place. I did not realize that other streaming services use AI for their subtitles. I subscribe to four different streaming services because: 1) I enjoy watching good movies and dramas, Korean ones in particular. 2) I have three grown children, the oldest one having recently graduated from college with a BA degree in Film Studies. 3) Let’s face it. What better thing is there to do during a pandemic lockdown? I normally watch the Korean movies and dramas with the subtitles, not because I don’t understand but because I want to compare how I would translate differently. If the subtitles are indeed AI generated, I found them to be passable for most part. I personally would, therefore, be willing to take off my translator’s hat and put on an editor’s hat to review and correct any machine made mistakes if VIKI decides to offer auto translations. Of course, I firmly believe that VIKI volunteers are extremely talented and dedicated and would much prefer subtitles provided by them.

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In the Brazilian Portuguese we don’t call our loved ones “Mel” :honey_pot: - honey literal meaning.
It’d be really weird to call someone as “Mel” here in Brazil with the meaning of darling or love.
Quotes/words like these, that have a different meaning of the literal word, would be really hard for an AI to get right to the way we say in our language.

If I translated this quote into Portuguese, it’d be like:

“Honey, you’re home?”
“Querido, você está em casa?” / “Querida, você está em casa?”

Querido/Querida = Darling

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Just to decrease tension a little bit in the comments, but I actually met, while editing Romanian subs, “Miere, […]”, and it’s hella hilarious:)) When one says “honey”, Romanian version, one can’t understand something else than honey - the sweet, sticky, bee product. So seeing it in various situations makes us really crack up:))))) Like, you can already see the beehive hoarding behind the drama character that uttered this sentence:)))

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Speaking of litteral translations …

afbeelding

And this is even “verified” by the “community”! :roll_eyes:
I don’t know who are in that community, but this is not what a normal Dutch person would say to someone he/she was about to take a picture of.

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That’s why this is a bad idea. Then you get subtitles like that. With “Zeg kaas” instead of “Even Lachen”

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Sure, but doesn’t this defeat the point of the auto generated subs? They said that they’ll be available (for now) for the Spanish and Portuguese community. And then disabled when fully subbed. If someone had to invest their energy into fixing those generated subs and then had to continue subbing / editing, wouldn’t that be twice the work? Or would everyone just correct the auto subs (granted that we’re allowed to fix it) and call it a day? Would the viewers then assume that the auto subs are actually pretty good and that volunteers aren’t needed?

Just a couple of questions that popped into my head when I read your sentence :thinking: :slightly_smiling_face:

I like volunteering on Viki and I would miss it if it disappeared, but I don’t feel the need to protect my volunteer status. I just want Viki to be clear in their intentions and to work together with the community :slight_smile:

@mirjam_465 :laughing: zeg kaas… I have heard this one before in real life, but that person wasn’t Dutch :laughing:

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Other questions …
When will the auto generated subtitles be provided, after English subs have a certain amount, let’s say 95% or so?
Or when they are 100%, there probably won’t be an edit at that time …
So given that there will be some mistakes in it, the auto generated subtitles will just show whatever the English subs provide, right?

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To be fair, what would you want it to say? “Are being translated”? “Will eventually be translated”?
It doesn’t say that they are all already translated.
Maybe they could put an asterisk with an explanatory note on the bottom? Some advertisements do. For instance
“This cream will make you 10 years younger”*
*According to a trial on 20 women done by us

Oops! As an English editor who has worked with some excellent Ko-En subbers but also with some, err… much less proficient ones, where I struggled to even make sense of what I was reading, I shudder to think what the AI would make of it.

Of course they are not. What nonsense!
kcw-subs
Those subtitles are condensed because they are geared to people who sometimes can’t read very quickly and don’t like to pause. Sometimes they skip difficult words and idioms, especially when translating them would result in an unnatural language. They are also localized losing the Asian flavor, something I don’t like. People are called by their first names, dishes are americanized etc. But otherwise, meaningwise, I have found them to be 98% of the time correct. And the language is fluent, effortless, natural. They do make mistakes, but much less than our subbers do. Considering the short time they have, I think they do a really good job, that they are good quality translations, although done with another type of public in mind, with another philosophy than ours here at Viki. This kind of job could never, NEVER have been done by a machine.

Not so. Because English is translated not from written Korean or Chinese but by listening. This adds a great difficulty.
Go to an English language video on Youtube and turn on automatic English subs. You will see that the machine has trouble understanding everything that’s said, and the results are comical. I don’t even know how the corresponding Korean to Korean speech to writing machine would be.
So to make subtitles, you would first have to make sound into writing in Korean, and THEN translate the Korean writing (which would be wrong) to English writing.
Adding one more step, one more problematic layer.

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ok, y’all made your points, and I do agree with you. the English language is a pain, I know, our words sometimes have different meanings, there, their, they’re is an example, so you other folks, have a difficult time interpreting those words,

I know there are others too. as for the subbers, I do know its hard to change a Chinese word to English, an example, ok? look yes, I used to complain about the slowness of the subs and all but I learned the whys and wherefores.

I would rather have a “human subber” two days in doing it, than having an AI doing it, why is it taking so long, etc. cause the subbers to have to figure out the right word to use, esp translating it to English! sheesh!

_I can always go to another drama and watch till the one I want to watch is translated, no problem. all of you had some great points here, and I hope VIKI will wake up, we aren’t whiners like someone said, we are voicing our opinion. sure we want better, but why take jobs away from people even if they are volunteers,

I am the older person here, maybe I am looking at it wrong, but these robots, AI’s or whatever you want to call them, don’t relate to us humans, don’t communicate, should I say note the various stores, and we have self serve stuff. give me a human fault & all!!!
this includes our volunteer subbers and all we can talk and then respond!

I went back and re-read some of these messages,
thats right, humans program the AI’s! and didn’t know that the other places run those AI’s to translate, been to some and the translation at least some are not very good. so I still would rather stick to our human translators

I would rather have a “human subber” two days in doing it, than having an AI doing it, w

_I can always go to another drama and watch till the one I want to watch is translated, no problem. all of you had some great points here, and I hope VIKI will wake up, we aren’t whiners like someone said, we are voicing our opinion. sure we want better, but why take jobs away from people even if they are volunteers,

, I re-read a lot of these messages today, and so we do have a problem, right? so Viki why don’t you hire more people to sub, train them?

hey yeah, I wanted to get involved, but I don’t think I would be good at it, from English to German, Korean, Chinese, etc, let others that know what they are doing, do it. as for people that are impatient, tell them why the subs are slow,

couple of people right here told me in a nice way why they are slow, the public really needs to know.

these subbers do a terrific job! we don’t need the AI’s, we need people that do care, that work themselves to the bone to do those subs for our dramas be they slow or not to people like me. look quality is better than quantity
and again for the person that said this Patience is a virtue, so we must learn that virtue, be it this or something else.
so lets solve the problem

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