HRWiki talk:Subtitles

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Revision as of 17:57, 28 August 2006

From Da Basement

Copied from HRWiki:Da_Basement#Subtitles:

Some of us have started working on subtitling Homestar Runner Flash cartoons to make them accessible to a wider audience. I would like to know what the HRWiki folks think about this. Should this be a part of the knowledge base wiki? Should it be separate? Would you help? The subtitles are based on the transcripts from the wiki, so there is a strong connection already. The subtitles project is still beta, but it should work with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Most subtitles have been donated by Phlip from an older project, and I and Elcool have done the international ones. Check it out and let us know. Loafing 22:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally know one person who'd be interested in that... --Jay (Gobble) 22:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I strongly support having some way to intergrate the subtitles files into the wiki. As a non-native speaker sometimes I need to go over the wiki transcript just to see what a word or two means. This way , it's already inside the toon window itself. Also, we could open the door for people with hearing problems who still want experiance Homestar Runner like the rest of us. Some flash artists like Weeble from Weeble and Bob and the people behind Too Much Spare Time Animation have already added subtitles to some of their toons. So If TBC aren't going to do it themselvs, we are here for them. — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 22:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The .xml file for Exp Film's Commentary doesn't work. --Jay (Gobble) 22:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Cheers, fixed the link. Also, listening to the commentary is currently not possible anyway, because of Flash security measures :-/ And I forgot to upload the experiment film subs, will have to wait until I'm back home. Loafing 23:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

We need this in the Greasemonkey script, pronto. ¤ The Mü _{Talk to me.} 02:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I showed it to the person I previously alluded. The biggest reason I got into H*R in the first place was because it allowed me to share the gift of Homestar with this person, who cannot hear. She says she likes the subtitled stuff better than the Wiki. "But no offense." --Jay (Gobble) 03:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, you just made my day :-D  Loafing 05:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Deaf watchers, eh? I'd assume captions, as opposed to subtitles would be more important then, yes? (For the uninitiated: subtitles transcribe the words, captions transcribe all the sound effects too.) --phlip ^T_C 05:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Take 'em as they come. --Jay (Gobble) 05:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, let's just say, hypothetically, I wanted to make one of these. How would I get the frame numbers to start/stop each line on? And how would I test it? --Jay (Gobble) 06:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

We haven't quite worked out the standards for subtitles/captions yet, so the format may change a little. But if you want to try it now, then here's how you do it: You need Phlip's Firefox Greasemonkey script. This will give you a seek bar for Flash toons from Homestarrunner.com. It also displays the current frame number. Then you grab one of the XML files from the subtitle site, scoop it empty, and use it as a skeleton. You probably also want to copy the text of the transcript into this file and split it up into short sections or sentences that you want to display as one title. Then use the seekbar to find the first and last frame numbers for each of the sections. It gets easy after you've done it once or twice. And you get to know the toon pretty well. Also note that each character has his or her own colour code. I'll put a page online soon with some more detailed hints, and I'll come up with a way of testing the titles. — I'm still not sure where to put the page with instructions. Do people believe this should be an HRWiki project, or should it be separate?  Loafing 06:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the frame numbers, I'd pretty much figured that all out. I have the beginnings of a Halloween Potion-ma-jig .xml file, but without frame numbers. --Jay (Gobble) 06:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Sound promising :-) I'll come up with a test page soon(ish). And you've heard that before, but... you should really be on IRC ;-)  Loafing 06:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I've never successfully managed to join IRC when a useful conversation is taking place. Plus, I have issues getting to it. --Jay (Gobble) 06:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright you guys, I finished the .XML file for Cool Tapes. Ding! ¤ The Mü _{Talk to me.} 03:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC) Is there a talk page specifically for this project? I thought of some things to discuss, but we'd flood Da Basement. I think there should be some sort of central Wiki page for this project, even if it's in a User space. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  03:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in the mood for IRC right now, but I figured I'd give an update. I have all of the text in my .xml file. I do not, however, have any frame numbers past the three Coach Z/Pom Pom scenarios. --Jay (Gobble) 06:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Uh oh.

Okay, I've got a serious problem with the Halloween Potion-ma-jig subtitiles.

The individual lines Homestar has at the end of the 'toon (A bottle of this, essence of that) are not stored through frame numbers. What's worse, I can't even say something like "A bottle of (something) water" or something like that, because different lines are different lengths, meaning I have to conform to whichever one is shortest or I get glitches. Thoughts?

The individual options work fine throughout the whole 'toon, and I suspect that the Homestar transformations work fine as well (though I haven't thoroughly tested.) --Jay (Gobble) 04:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Ergh, yeah, that's the biggest problem, that we can only subtitle stuff that actually correlates to frame numbers. If audio is triggered by ActionScript independently from graphics frames, we're doomed. The same goes for sequences that are loaded separately, such as the Experimental Film Commentary or the Very, Very Little Girl easter egg. I'll have a look at that, and I'll get back to you ASAP. Loafing 05:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, the problem wasn't what I thought it was, and all known kinks are worked out. HRWiki:Subtitles/en/halloween2005mx. And with that... good nighzzzzzz... --Jay (Gobble) 07:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The updates caused some formatting issues I don't like. Most specifically, anything italicized becomes mashed together with the surrounding words likethisappears. Plus, when Homestar is dancing and Bubs is saying "Stick and move, stick and move", I originally put them on separate lines - when they appear as they do now, they look as though they're being said in turn rather than at the same time. --Jay (Gobble) 17:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Patience grasshopper, for the best things come to those who wait. By "best things" I mean "the Greasemonkey version of the subtitles" and by "wait" I mean "until you see that both of these come out correctly in that version" - "Stick and move" is on its own line, spaces around italics aren't destroyed, it actually pulls the XML stuff from the wiki itself, rather than this just being here for show, etc. I'm still working out some of the kinks (like it working perfectly for me, but failing silently without even an error message for someone else... yeah, that's just a kink), but expect at least a work in progress by tomorrow or the day after or so. --phlip ^T_C 18:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Now what?

Sbemail 6 is all good to go, but what now? THe page doesn't say. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  05:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Didn't think anybody would come this far ;-) Put it on http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/HRWiki:Subtitles/en/sbemail6, and then I'll copy it over to the external site. :-)  Loafing 05:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

All up and running :-) Is the Klingon version next? ;-)  Loafing 05:41, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Ya, you just sit there and wait for that one. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  05:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add other languages to HRWiki:Subtitles/Characters... xml:lang="x-klingon", I think is the right way... --phlip ^T_C 06:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Non-Working Link

The link to the subtitle page doesn't work. Just so you know. --TotalSpaceshipGirl3 14:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes Loafing's site is down. Wait a couple of minutes and it will be up and running. — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 15:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a free hosting site, so we get what we pay for. It will all be better for Firefox users once Phlip has incorporated the subtitles into his Greasemonkey script.  Loafing 19:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

At the meantime I added a mirror from my small wiki. — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 19:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Emphasis

I'm having a problem with the emphasis codes. Whenever I add them, they italicize the text fine, but remove the spaces directly around the word. I tried <i>, <em>, and <strong> tags. - Joshua 19:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Read my post above. --phlip ^T_C 19:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

One workaround is to use &amp;nbsp; to force a space. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  00:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Namespace

It looks like there's gonna be a whole website's worth of these pages, so to keep them organized, I made the Subtitles namespace. I didn't move anything into the new namespace yet, first because I didn't know whether anything depended on the pages' being where they are now, and second because I can see arguments for the primary organization being by language (e.g. Subtitles:en/cheatar, Subtitles:en/ween03) or by toon name (e.g. Subtitles:chetar/de, Subtitles:chetar/en) and figured we should discuss it first. (By the way, true subpages are enabled for this namespace.) — It's dot com 00:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this Category:Subtitles, I believe that it makes sense to organize it by toon name. Loafing 07:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, can I add, since we're moving stuff anyway... can we have the names match the filename of the .html file, rather than the .swf? It's easier to code, that way. --phlip ^T_C 09:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Fine with me. Then we need to put the swf filename back in the <transcript> tag for the external script.  Loafing 09:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I made subcategories for the various languages, since all the pages can be seen just by viewing the list of pages in the namespace. — It's dot com 15:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

New version

Go to HRWiki:Subtitles/Greasemonkey and install that... instructions are at the top. Be aware that this is just a beta... there's probably problems with it, and the (nonexistant) options interface isn't all that user-friendly. But it's there... now you can stop complaining about the old version not liking the formatting changes... --phlip ^T_C 06:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Good Jorb! I strongly recommend that everybody installs the Greasemokey script, because it actually uses the up-to-date subtitles from the wiki. The script on the external site has been updated somewhat as well, to fix the bugs mentioned in the previous sections. Loafing 07:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Question about Strong Bad Emails

When Strong Bad reads his email and types on his computer, are subtitles necessary? --Trogga 14:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  14:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Why? --Trogga 14:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Because he doesn't always say what's on the screen. Look at the helium email for example. There are a few subtle differences between what he types and what he says. Check it out. Also, I remember watching an early one on the other site with captions, but with no sound. The email text wasn't captioned. But a comment he made in the middle of reading was. Now, if i had never seen this one before, how would I know where that comment referred to? In fact, with no captioning, how would I even know Strong Bad was reading out loud? - Qermaq - (^T/C)  14:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Sound Effect Standard

What sound effects should be noted, and how should they be noted? One example is The Paper. My opinion is to not indicate the sound, as it's really not meaningful to the storyline at all. Even in toons like little animal The Paper's noise isn't as meaningful as what it looks like. Also, are we using Geddup Noise for the chair? Will we change to Chairscoot somewhere around email 84? Finally, we clearly don't need to note EVERY sound effect. Just the ones that are part of the storytelling, I'd say. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  14:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Welsh

I can make Welsh subtitles if anyone's interested. Strong Sader 17:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC) P.S. The subtitles don't show on my computer because it rejects the "<br>" in the code.

Are you using Firefox? Did you install Phlip's scripts? And there should not be any <br>'s in the transcripts, they should be <br/>'s. If one is wrong, add the slash to the XML and try again. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  17:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I have Internet Explorer, and I've saved the All-in-One scripts. Strong Sader 17:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

All-in-one works with IE? Really now? - Qermaq - (^T/C)  17:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It didn't, I was just telling you my situation. Strong Sader 17:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)