Subtitled Lyrics?

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Subtitled Lyrics?

Postby The Wired Knight » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:16 pm

I was recently planning my next video in the drama catagory when I realized something. The song I am planning to use is in japanese, plain and simple, though the song relies on the lyrics to better convey what the theme of the video is. Thus the only way to get across the story I'm attempting to would be to subtitle my AMV and thus have the translated lyrics on the bottom. Now I've seen this done before but only in the context of comedy AMVs so I was wondering, do you think adding those subtitles would help or hinder a romance AMV when it comes to the audience perception of it? (I'm not implying just a contest audience but really just anybody in general who watches the video without knowing any japanese).
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Postby Castor Troy » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:28 pm

The story should be told by the editing and pace.
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Postby Kitsuner » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:28 pm

Well, from what I've seen done before, you could make 2 versions: one subbed, one clean. Another possiblity would be to encode in .ogm format, so that subtitles are an option, but I don't know much about that one.
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Postby The Wired Knight » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:46 pm

Castor Troy wrote:The story should be told by the editing and pace.


True, I think it can be told that way but after planning out the video I think it is in fact better if you have an idea what the lyrics are. Some videos you can get away without the subs like Rythm Generation because the pacing of the video is fast and it has people's attention, but when it's slow like a drama video I'm not so sure if people have an attention for that without knowing what' sbeing said. Though at the same time I can see it dividing their attention too much and you wind up paying more attention to the subtitles than the editing.
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Postby trythil » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:49 pm

Subtitles in the container would probably be the way to go.

This isn't an option for conventions, but luckily at anime conventions there's really only two types of people:

(1) those who know Japanese cold
(2) those who think all the Japanese say is "sugoi! kawaii neko! *giggle*"

So you can partition the set of anime con-goers into those who will get the story and those who won't get it even if it were written in fanboy English. Problem solved.
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Postby staces » Tue Sep 27, 2005 7:55 pm

one way to go, rather than subtitle the whole thing, it to put pieces of the lyrics up in a nice font (not standard subtitle font) during the instrumental parts, or the beginning and end. That way everyone wins. =)
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Postby Orwell » Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:50 pm

If you want to add subtitles, but want to leave it in AVI format, I'd recommend creating a .srt file that's hosted elsewhere. That way, anyone can see it easily, and choose whether they want to have subtitles or not.
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Postby The Wired Knight » Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:55 pm

Orwell wrote:If you want to add subtitles, but want to leave it in AVI format, I'd recommend creating a .srt file that's hosted elsewhere. That way, anyone can see it easily, and choose whether they want to have subtitles or not.


That probably sounds like the best idea, that makes it easy to host and I don't have to try to upload two seperate AVIs. That only leaves the choice of which version is best to send to cons.
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Postby Tormentor » Wed Sep 28, 2005 2:03 am

Hi there!
I used subs in a drama video, that took part in a contest. The reason, why I subtitled the lyrics was that it was a song with growl-vocal use. I put the subs above a cropping, so that they are good to read. BTW I won the contest :D
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Postby FurryCurry » Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:29 pm

I've given this issue some thought, and decided that at least having the option of subs is a good idea, whether it's done by making two diferent versions available, downloadable softsubs, or in-place softsubs by using a container like .mkv or .ogm

For a con submission, I think I'd choose to send the unsubbed version, or discuss the matter with the person running the contest/submissions.

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Postby prettysoldiersailormoon » Thu Sep 29, 2005 11:30 am

I personally don't like subtitles because I read them instead of watching the video. I don't care if the song is in English, Japanse, French, German, it doesn't matter, I'll still like it. But definitely giving the viewer a choice is a good idea.
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Postby AquaSky » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:06 pm

If it were me, I'd probably leave the clean version on local and have a hardsubbed version as a direct link. Of course, that would depend on whether or not you have your own hosting. Softsubs would work, it's just that the percentage of users who don't have mkv/ogm support might be enough to warrant going the other route (same with having a separate subtitle file - not many folks are going to want to mux their own subs in).
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Postby The Wired Knight » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:38 pm

I thought of that but unfortunately I don't have any hosting anywhere that could decently hold an AMV with hardsubs, and I agree that most people don't have the software to support softsubs which creates teh dileema. Normally I wouldn't give the fact that I have a foreign song another thought but since it's a romance AMV it might move too slow if you don't know what is being said.
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Postby Qyot27 » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:46 pm

IcyCloud wrote:(same with having a separate subtitle file - not many folks are going to want to mux their own subs in).

It's not necessary to mux them in manually if they have DirectVobSub installed and the subtitle file has the same filename as the AVI, though. It autoloads as long as the two are in the same directory. The only difficulty there, of course, is getting them to install DirectVobSub.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm starting to use more esoteric encoding standards that require the use of other containers, this would likely be the option I'd take in regards to subtitles. I mean, the subtitles are mainly just sort of an added bonus, and shouldn't be necessary by any means. If they really want to know what's being said but don't want to install DirectVobSub, then they can look up the lyrics or translation somewhere online, if they aren't already provided on the video description page.
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Postby requiett » Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:17 am

Or you could just not use Japanese music at all, since most of it's not that great anyhow.
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