Hello,
as my title already states: What (possible new) subtitle editor tools would you like to have?
I’ve been wondering that apart from that time Viki tried these suggestions and voting things (we know how that went…), not many new major things have happened in the subtitle editor, but maybe there is stuff that could actually help alot? Especially with redunant and laborous tasks.
E.g. I often feel it would be great to have a way of mass editing where I could replace all or certaint occurences of a word, or whole OSTs etc without having to go through many parts and episodes, etc. These redundant tasks take away a lot of time und could be easily implemented, etc.
I tried to get more in detail in the Viki Idea section.
a way to change capital words into lower-case without retyping the word
That one would probably be difficult: in several languages (German first), capital letters have an actual meaning, even for “normal” nouns etc. Even outside these cases, capital letters are often used slightly differently in different languages: it wouldn’t be easy to code something that could cover every language used on Viki.
What I really would like to have (and what would also be really expensive to implement ) is a function, where if there is any repeating line (e.g.: ost, ending, or remembering back to a conversation from X episode before, or a table in a historical drama) the editors could mark that exactly the same line was in EP. X azt yy:zz segment. These marked lines would appear for all languages as marked (it could have a similar design as the subtitle history, where you can see the previous contributors modifications). By clicking on it, we could see what was written in the marked segment (ofc, it would show in the subtitler language). If we could just copy the text from there, what we already translated X episode before, it would make the OL subtitles much more consistent and they could have been created faster. Like this, preferably only one or two person should look for the episode from where the recap is from, and not someone from all the languages.
An example to make it easier to understand.
Ep 1 at 10:00 has a text
EP 2 at 05:00 the character remember back to the text in EP 1 → the first editor who realized this, mark this segment and link it together with EP 1’s segment
language subtitler finishes EP 1
when language subtitler goes to EP 2, at the repeating segment a mark will show that this segment is a repeated one → and by clicking on it, s/he could see what s/he wrote in EP1, and copy it, without reopening EP 1 and looking for this particular segment
Ofc, most of us have our notes for each of the drama, where we are making our own “dictionary” to make sure wherever we can, we stay consistent… but a tool like this would make our job faster and easier.
In my post on Viki idea, I also outlined an automated version where Viki could automatically search for similar or exact same segments. Easier implementation would be to base it on English edited subtitle, but they could also do a bit more complicated version that also would benefit English subbers by basing it on audio waves similarity.
Your version would be great additional for fact checking this automated way and also catching text as it wouldn’t be spotted through the audio wave (of course ) It would also give more control to contributors, etc.
This is a very good idea! I agree. I always thought it would be nice if we could have a Bulk Editor of all the episodes at once where you can find repeating lines in one place. Because I always find myself going episode by episode using the search function to find the original scene whenever a flashback happens and it’s the same text as before. What you said would make it even easier.
Why would you have to do it the hard way? I keep a Google sheet with all the subs of all the episodes.
I copy the subtitles with @piranna 's method.
From Bulk Editor, CTRL+A (select all), CTRL+C (copy to clipboard) go to a Notepad document (to clean up any formatting, otherwise the timing will be on different lines than the subs), CTRL+V (paste). It now has some junk on top and bottom (what was in the left column of Bulk editor). Delete those, then CTRL+A (select all), CTRL+X (cut) and then go to your Google sheet and CTRL+V (copy).
Actually Piranna did it slightly differently, without Notepad, directly to the Google sheet, selecting a different sort of paste at the end: right click, choose “Paste Special” and then “Values only”. But it didn’t work for me at all (I don’t know why), so I found this other method, which is quite easy too.
You choose whether to do this for the two languages (English and yours) separately or together.
If you want them separately, make sure one of the columns is empty (for instance, if you only want the English, put English on the left and Afar or any untranslated language on the right, and if you want only yours, then put yours on the left column and an untranslated language on the right).
What I prefer is both together in one column of the Google sheet, each English subtitle has its translated one underneath. Otherwise, if the drama has many episodes, the number of columns becomes double and it’s tiresome to scroll horizontally to go from episode to episode.
In Bulk Editor, I make sure English is on the left an my language on the right. Then I proceed normally. When you copy-paste, the other language will be on a line below the English!
I think it would be great if Viki could implement features that people are already doing through external means. Instead of having to rely on external it would be great if those organisational tools and tipps and tricks of the volunteers one day find their way to Viki as an official implementation. For the benefit of all of us
Viki is thinking of getting rid of the volunteers. Someone who used to work for them said in an interview that this question came up in every one of their meetings - until now, they always ended up deciding to keep us, for the sake of the “Other Languages” that bring, after all, more paying clients.
But in reality, they have been disregarding our needs and suggestions completely for the past 5-6 years. Every change they have made here was not to make volunteers’ life easier but for other, cosmetic reasons, and to please the paying customers.
The last really good thing they did for us was when they introduced the keyboard shortcuts in the Editor, also the menu to jump from episode to episode. Having a chat for all team members so that whenever you sent a team message you didn’t have a hundred messages to delete was also a good idea. (On the other hand, you could select them and delete them 20 at a time, a whole page, something that you cannot do now). Another nice one is that the message from the Project Finder goes to the moderator of the relevant language.
Frankly, I cannot think of any other thing that was of any real help.
The inbox is a mess,
the project finder is a mess,
the volunteer finder, which would have been wonderful with a good update was instead ditched,
the Team Discussions are rendered almost useless if you don’t use a cryptic language, because our most used terms get censored and the post isn’t seen until days later
the project page doesn’t give the relevant info for someone who wants to check completion of projects and number of projects (even the dashboard is hidden for visitors!)
our personal profile pages, proudly and carefully made, have been relegated to another website.
our cover pages, proudly and carefully made, have been relegated to the bottom of the Team tab.
the possibility of changing language from the bottom, to see the info of our drama in our language etc. was eliminated - after they took away most of the languages leaving only a handful.
When we want to see a little of an episode to check completion of language etc., every time we have to waste time with that horrid blue screen at the beginning.
they have taken away from most languages the possibility to edit the synopsis, which often has glaring mistakes (as it’s made by the production team before the drama has been completely written and filmed) or huge spoilers.
And of course,
they have destroyed the segmenting community and the English subbing community because they wanted to cater to sub-whiners.
for the same reason, they ask Channel Managers and English editors to release to Other Languages without editing, sometimes to do away with Translation Editor and General Editor. Thus, the editors’ hard work won’t be seen by most of the viewers - only those who come on later will be able to enjoy it at its best.
And, after all this, you’re wishing they implement new cool features just to make our work easier, when we are already doing without them? Yeah, sure!
I mean, I have to take off my hat to someone who has the courage to be optimistic and positive, but, realistically … it’s not going to happen.
I tried to encourage a conversation about new possibilities without being too negative. As a long-term user, I do know how Viki has changed over the years, but this wasn’t necessarily my focus here. My discussion here started with my curiosity about other people’s “possible” tools within the subtitle editor and to brainstorm. Therefore, yes, people can be optimistic and wishful. Afterall, that was the main purpose of this topic: what would you like to have.
I like programming, which is why I focused on code implementations within the editor, because so often I get annoyed by the way the editor was designed and how simple certain changes in the code would be. I could have framed this discussion from the get-go negatively by voicing my annoyances, but I felt that wouldn’t be the right way to encourage others to chip in their opinions.
I hope the Technical Dept here at Rakuten get in touch with you and try to work out a better option to deal with the subtitle editor issues. For a long time now, IT does needs improvement, and is very thoughtful of you to encourage others to chip in their opinion. THANK YOU and GOOD LUCK!
) is a function, where if there is any repeating line (e.g.: ost, ending, or remembering back to a conversation from X episode before, or a table in a historical drama) the editors could mark that exactly the same line was in EP. X azt yy:zz segment. These marked lines would appear for all languages as marked (it could have a similar design as the subtitle history, where you can see the previous contributors modifications). By clicking on it, we could see what was written in the marked segment (ofc, it would show in the subtitler language). If we could just copy the text from there, what we already translated X episode before, it would make the OL subtitles much more consistent and they could have been created faster. Like this, preferably only one or two person should look for the episode from where the recap is from, and not someone from all the languages.
