Nov/0837
Radio dramas – why doesn’t anyone translate them?
A commenter reminded me of the fact that the Toradora opening single includes the opening song for the radio drama of Toradora. I don't remember ever seeing anyone translating radio dramas, and yet there are so many of them that run alongside anime or manga, which let Japanese fans get more insight, or more funnies, or whatnot that comes with the package of the dramas. Is there even a western scene for them? Why is it hard to subtitle/translate them?
Doing them as blank videos or videos with pictures on YouTube, with closed captions or subtitles, I guess would work. But that would be rather dumb too, as YouTube is shit quality. So is there a solution for it? Do we have a container of some kind that can hold music + translated text, that you can view on say, an iPod? I know my iPhone has karaoke possibilities in a very fancy format, and I've added it to some songs for the fun of it. It really works too, matches with the music and highlights what's being said just like in anime, as an overlay on top of the album cover. Is this format a standard that can be used to release to the masses?
I honestly wouldn't mind doing this for say, Toradora, but doing this would require some figuring of how to release them and how to make it possible to listen to these like a radio drama CD or whatnot would be listened to; on a music player of your choice, not like a video you sit watching like it was anime. I'd really like to hear from anyone who's tried to explore this area, as getting a radio drama translation scene up would be really coal.
EDIT: Okay, people are missing my point. I'm asking whether anyone knows of a unified, soft-sub type of format for distributing audio + text that can be used to do radio dramas. Having a format like this would ease up the process of releasing translated radio dramas, and removed the need for a video player to follow. Sure, you'd still have audio + text you read, but that'd give people the chance to either read the text OR the audio - even though the text alone would probably miss some of the point cause of the soundeffects in the dramas.
If this kind of format does exist, why isn't anyone using it? If it actually does not exist, are anyone trying to make one? This is the things I'd like to find out, while kinda polling the interest in the radio dramas so one could figure whether it is worth my time too.
November 11th, 2008
The ARIA picture drama extras or Kanokon drama CDs have been released as normal videos. Since you need to read the subs anyway there is no point in bothering with other formats. Hardsub works on iPod, too.
AFAIK the lyrics feature built into iPhone does not support highlighting. There are several apps that do, but if you don’t mention which one you use we can’t know whether the format is a standard ^^;
November 11th, 2008
Doing it as normal videos seems a bit excessive. This would require people to re-encode them if you did it softly, and that is way too technical for some people. I’m looking for a streamlined solution that will work on anything, without having to do a black video with audio and hard-encoded text on it. If you do it with hard-encoded text, it feels like you’ve lost.
Also, Kanokon and ARIA were picture dramas. I’m talking about radio dramas that run on radio stations in Japan. Some of these get released on CDs after they’ve been cut. I have for instance a bucketload of Nanoha drama CDs I love listening to for the lol factors.
November 11th, 2008
I did translate the first chapter of the higurashi drama cd a while back but never relesed it. I used the cover of the drama cd for image and used normal video subing. It was really crap and all but i just did it since noone translates drama cd’s even though alot of them are REALLY good. Like in the higurashi drama cd’s are acutally much better than the anime because the seiyuus are doing a lot better job.
I really don’t know any good ways to distribute these things though. Which is probably the main reason people don’t do it i guess.
November 11th, 2008
This? >:P
http://rgfansub.wordpress.com/category/releases/drama-cd/
November 11th, 2008
and I don’t know if you can do it without video… where else the translation would be located?
the best I can come up with is encoding it as pmp-compatible files… but that would make the text too small…
November 11th, 2008
Video is the easy way to do it, everyone’s used to video, since we watch anime. We read on the screen and hear/watch what’s happening. Remove the watching bit necessary for the actual show, and leave only hearing + having to read text. Why do you need a video then? Should be SOMETHING that lets you put subtitles to audio, without video, that you can view in something. I’m sure there’s some standard out there nobody knows of, and nobody uses.
November 11th, 2008
I’m not so sure about it. Even if something like that exist it would most likely in proprietary format.
November 11th, 2008
There’s something like ogg vorbis/speex + CMML, but no real support for it. It shouldn’t be hard to hack something up to handle it. The super lazy way would be to just hack it into ogg123 and dump it at the command line, but that’s crap (but also very easy). Probably better than audio + running sheet, though that has its own merits.
November 11th, 2008
The ONLY way to display CMML I can find is a Firefox plugin.
Nothing to do with pretty text is easy. Just think of that miserable Winamp plugin to display lyric lines that are always too long or the wrong font size.
The problem with displaying a whole sheet is that people can’t help reading ahead. If it’s not in sync you might as well do without audio.
November 11th, 2008
If nobody uses it it can be a standard and still wouldn’t matter. There is a propietary format that easily does what you want, QuickTime. But the result will look like a video, because that makes sense. The only disadvantage ofa ‘normal’ video would be file size, and only slightly, as there’s little movement. I don’t understand what you don’t like about that simple solution.
November 11th, 2008
I remember some group doing an Eva radio drama called the End of End of Evangelion or something like that. They had the audio playing with subs and made a clip show of sorts of all the characters faces when they were talking and some affects here and there to reflect some of the action happening. That could be a tiring process but it worked.
November 11th, 2008
Take a look at Tortoise Fansubs. Considering the comments here it seems like it IS difficult to promote drama CD subbing. They have done the Aria picture dramas too, but if you scroll down you can also see their (few) releases of drama CDs (Aria and Zero no Tsukaima).
November 11th, 2008
You could just write everything down as text and just have people listen to it while they read the translation. But then it would be hard to follow i guess for the people that don’t know japanese…
November 11th, 2008
itd be a terribly long process, but what if you enlisted the help of some artists? like you provide them with a few points of the script and they draw a little pencil sketch of whoever is talking/yelling or taiga-rage. >_<
Sketches can be relatively quick and get the job done of giving something to look at.
I mean, Im not talented in that area at all, but Im sure youve got a lot of fans that are up to the task. Plus, with fan sketches and fan translation, its truly “By fans for fans”
November 11th, 2008
You’re missing my point here. I’m trying to find a unified way to distribute this without need of video. Sure, making someone draw would be coal and all that – but it kinda goes against my wish to make timed, soft scripts coming together with audio that it is synced with.
November 12th, 2008
ah, sorry sorry! I misunderstood. Well, after a quick google, this is all I can come up with. Unfortunately, developing new formats or doing anything technical is beyond me, but maybe this is in the right direction?
LRC on Wikipedia
November 13th, 2008
I’m with you on that, since my short reserch has gone through this page as well :)
So far, there are two choices to be made: audio/video with softsub/hardsub. This gives us four options: (any audio) & *.lrc; *.mp3 & id3v2-embedded lyrics; video with subs in container (e.g. *.mkv) or in separate file (*.ssa, *.srt etc.); hardsubbed video (*.avi, *.mp4). Distributing lyrics/subtitles only would save you from copyright-related issues (IMO), while distributing translation-embedded versions would save users from excessive downloading+installing+configuring various tools for their players.
As a usual, decision is about balance and compromises..
November 13th, 2008
ID3V2 does not allow scrolling/highlighting.
Text is just as copyrighted as imagery, and pure translations theoretically need a license, too. Remember how many people live on royalties for lyrics, paid by karaoke places ;)
November 13th, 2008
You’re wrong. ID3v2 tag, being a container, can store virtually anything as long as it isn’t really huge. See http://www.id3.org/ID3v2Easy for further details.
What you mean is that GIVEN PLAYER can’t handle scrolling/highlighting of tag-embedded lyrics.
Proving piracy of audio track (CD-rip) and text (translation) are completely different matters. One can’t prohibit ilifin from writing a “fanfic” or “tribute to Toradora” that – completely coincidentally – has the same IDEA as a certain Japanese drama.
Not that it matters anyway, since most practical way for such release IMHO would be *.mkv with one still image and embedded softsubs.
November 13th, 2008
I didn’t know that ID3 has a SYLT frame since v2.3. This may also change what I first replied about iPhone.
I couldn’t find anything about still images in the Matroska spec. QuickTime supports it.
November 12th, 2008
hmm… I think the lyrics/karaoke plugins for various media players (particularly WinAmp and Windows Media Player) might just be what you’re looking for. Though I have yet to try those myself.
November 12th, 2008
lol maybe some group should just translate it and dub it with their own voices, then release on mp3 or something
November 12th, 2008
The horror…
November 13th, 2008
gg for 002 dub
November 13th, 2008
Creating a new Format for a specific purpose isn’t as hard as it sounds. But the problem is, that the players (hard- or software, it does’t matters) have to support this. Some hardwareplayers (but most not) can add a new format with a firmwireupdate (which is not easy to program, since you can destroy the entire player with it); you have to program plugins, addons or updates for different softwareplayers. Just to sum up, its not impossible but too hard.
And there wasn’t ever the need for such a format nor the demand for it. So iflin, stick with a video, or just release an .ass since its easier to encode a video than establish a new format ;)
Oh and never realease a dub. You know m.3.3.w.? The team sung the OP from Special A, and well….
Since i played it loud, my cat has a hearing disorder and my little brother nightmares.
November 13th, 2008
minilyrics
\thread
November 13th, 2008
i mean .lrc – -b”
November 13th, 2008
I think minilyrics (.lrc) or just doing a video would be the best bet, but there is a lot of good stuff in audio dramas. That Shana one someone posted earlier was hilarious and I wish someone would do the Code Geass ones as well.
November 13th, 2008
Can’t you simply drop the audio and an .ass into an MKV without adding a video stream? Not sure how existing players would handle that, though.
On the outlandish prospect of created a new format (or extension to a format): in the same way test in .ass can be styled (and often abused to give individual characters their own distractingly FABULOUS text colours), maybe associate a ’style’ with each character’s lines, and instead of colouring the text instead pop up a portrait of the character (with fallback of a blank box). Maybe a similar thing for ’scenes’ to stick up a background. Then again, this all requires EFFORT to code in the first place, more EFFORT to add when translating/timing, and clutters up the screen. So text-on-a-black-box is probably the way to go.
November 13th, 2008
Why don’t you ever reply to my comments? ;_;
November 14th, 2008
Probably best to make a program to render a black video background, and load up subtitles which will render on top of the video background using VSFilter or something while playing audio at the same time.
@notaname: Most players would play audio only and just ignore the subtitles.
November 15th, 2008
How about using CD+G format? there is alot of plugins (for winamp) and specialiced software to play that format (*.cdg usualy).
A CD+G maker: http://www.powerkaraoke.com/src/prod_karaokecdgcreator.php
sice it’s like almost an standar maybe it whould work.
hope it helps, bb :)
PS: excuse my bad english :P
November 15th, 2008
Why bother? Im sure theres an encoder that will make the video stream of ‘black screen’ small enough so that the increase is file size is negligible. And you get playback with no extra effort
November 15th, 2008
Enabling people to “view” text without using “videos”? Unless I’m out with the times, that’s some new technology you’re talking there.
The closest I’ve thought of will be something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=bluedragoon
His videos with the Haruhi drama CD, or my own YT channel with the Lucky Star drama CD. But it seems you do not want to go down this route.
November 16th, 2008
You’re being a bit anal about how I’m thinking here. Audio dramas are… AUDIO. They should come with text for releases, and no video. I was exploring the possibilities of getting the audio + text to be shown in some common format, but after the long roll of discussing here, I’m seeing we’re not getting this either way.
November 19th, 2008
Hi ilifin,
Have you thought about the avenue of adding the text as if it was ‘lyrics’? If so, It’s quite possible to do so, though you would have to distribute the audio along with the lyrics.
All the details on how to add synchronised lyrics to an audio using WMP11 file can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/howto/AddLyrics.aspx
The funky thing about it all is – since you are editing ID3v2 tag, it will be compatible over players such as WMP11, Winamp, Itunes, etc. For a full list of players, see -
http://www.id3.org/Implementations
November 17th, 2008
I sort of understand what you are trying to get at, as you say: “audio + text to be shown in some common format.” Although, I can’t help but think you are practically asking for the impossible.
I mean like if your theory is for us to see the text of the audio whether moving or like in a subtitle process, wouldn’t it need to be in a picture like manner, a.k.a. a video? To my knowledge to show anything moving on-screen (whether text or subtitles) would need to be a video, an image (i.e. .gif) or even extremely futuristic where we could just see moving text (whether scrolling or subtitle like manner) via our own eyes or special glasses. I know the special glasses idea has been thought of, but I don’t know whether it’ll be put for any good use, aside from geeky movies. And how would we listen to the audio in this method? The same as we usually do for on-the-go music, with headphones, earphones, etc.
Aside from that, how would you like it to be used in? On an PMP or PC? If PC, the only method I can think of is the same as edo pointed out, “audio drama cd’s in video format.” If for on-the-go, the special glasses method as I pointed out, a virtual reality method in which, where ever you travel you can see the texts as long as you are listening the the audio – way too advanced for the real world, or a simpler scrolling/subtitle-like manner on the PMP itself, but not as a video – sort of like how on old Sony MP3 players you can see the name of the song on the display name area and they scroll.
I hope anything I’ve mentioned can help us have a better understand of what you are trying to figure out or do. Feel free to email me for anything you’d like me to explain/broaden further (as I personally don’t like to write paragraphs of information for blog comments).