Incredibly detailed article, thanks for that. The blog software still uses example.com in html head, RSS feed and sitemap XML.
Good catch, thanks - I literally built the site alongside the article, so there's still some rough edges here and there.
Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
61–70 of 171 posts
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#62Netflix implements "imgsub"[1] - it actually delivers a zipped archive of transparent images to the player. So technically they can pre-render positioned typesetted subtitles on server and render them as images overlay, as long as there's no animated text effects. In general, streaming services have to ensure maximum compatibility when playing their contents on all kinds of devices - high end and low end. For which o…
> In general, streaming services have to ensure maximum compatibility when playing their contents on all kinds of devices - high end and low end. For which on low end device it could be very resource constraining to render typesetted subtitles. There are other platforms where all video playback have to be managed by the platform system frameworks with limited format support, and streaming services can't do much about it.
Surely if my mid-end phone from 2015 supported everything .ASS has to offer, they could do it either?
In any case... I don’t believe the problem is that Netflix and Crunchyroll have to support low-end devices, it’s that they don’t want to pay $$$ for typesetting. They are big enough now that they don’t have to care, so they don’t – just another example of enshittification.
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#63As someone who doesn't watch anime, this article reminds me of when a coworker sends a screenshot with zero context and says something like "is this supposed to be like this?" Maybe it's a spectrum thing, but I find it beyond lazy and insulting.
In the article, there's zero explanation of what the actual issue is, at least in the first few paragraphs. It just seems to say the subtitles are bad with some examples and puts the burden on the reader to determine why.
Is the issue the subtitle's location on the screen ? Contrast or font? Quality of translations? Again, it's probably a spectrum thing, but without any context I find it overwhelming and overstimulating.
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#64This is the result of a ton of research into Crunchyroll's recent subtitle changes that have tanked the service's first-party presentation quality to an all-time low. The article ended up being quite long, so I highly appreciate anyone taking the time to read it in full!
Does Netflix really only allow 2 lines of subtitling on screen at a time? That's really stupid. Also I remember when CR killed the Kodi plugin, that irked me enough to stick to DVD imports + fan subs for a while. Finally, Ruri Rocks is such a good show, it got me to resubscribe to CR after not having subbed for years. If they screw with its subs I'm gonna root for this mess to bankrupt CR for good.
> Ruri Rocks
This could be the toughest show to sub with all the geological explaination and jargon the adapter must be familiar with.
Adding to that the line limit, The bar to cross sounds quite hard.
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously you probably thought about it but what about rendering the subtitles on top of the video stream? Was there a reason it was not possible (e.g DRMs?)
This kind of softsubbing is what Crunchyroll primarily does, but it has hardsubbed encodes for devices that cannot do softsubbed rendering of the ASS subtitles that Crunchyroll uses. I go over some ways in how they could do away with these hardsubbed variants in the article without any notable loss in primary experience quality.
They could borrow a trick from Netflix mentioned elsewhere in this thread: https://netflixsubs.app/docs/netflix/features/imgsub
I’m pretty sure it’s not too hard to implement an ASS → PNG renderer (especially considering vibe coding is now a thing). Then, just need to split out subs that can be actual text somehow from the ones that have to be overlays.
Apart from that... surely they could at least keep ASS subs for the players that support it, and serve “fallback” subs for low-end devices?
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#66Netflix implements "imgsub"[1] - it actually delivers a zipped archive of transparent images to the player. So technically they can pre-render positioned typesetted subtitles on server and render them as images overlay, as long as there's no animated text effects. In general, streaming services have to ensure maximum compatibility when playing their contents on all kinds of devices - high end and low end. For which o…
In 2008 I was watching fansubbed anime with decent typesetting on a netbook with a shitass-even-for-the-time Atom processor, so I don't buy for one second that this is a device capabilities issue.
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#67A similar issue has been plaguing the manga industry since "The Great Scanlator Purge" that took place a few years ago, leaving only the "official" Viz media-contracted translators in the wake of the ruins. For some reason, this change came with a general unwillingness on the translators part to correct, or translate, concepts that virtually all fan translators would've been happy to do. Here's some examples (there a…
[deleted]
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#68A similar issue has been plaguing the manga industry since "The Great Scanlator Purge" that took place a few years ago, leaving only the "official" Viz media-contracted translators in the wake of the ruins. For some reason, this change came with a general unwillingness on the translators part to correct, or translate, concepts that virtually all fan translators would've been happy to do. Here's some examples (there a…
>"Indignia", which doesn't mean anything
It's a combination of indignation and the suffix ia, meaning land of.
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#69Netflix implements "imgsub"[1] - it actually delivers a zipped archive of transparent images to the player. So technically they can pre-render positioned typesetted subtitles on server and render them as images overlay, as long as there's no animated text effects. In general, streaming services have to ensure maximum compatibility when playing their contents on all kinds of devices - high end and low end. For which o…
Unfortunately, as the link describes, Netflix only makes this available for a very limited set of languages, while everyone else is stuck with the extremely limited text-based standards. Frankly, those text-based subtitle standards are quite maddening on their own. Netflix's text-based subtitle rendering seems to support a much wider set of TTML features than what it actually allows subtitle providers to use - so if…
What Netflix supports on their main website might not be what they care about, though; you used to be able to watch Netflix on the Nintendo Wii, and they probably still have some users on stupidly old smart TVs.
Re: Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIUC, it comes down to simplifying playback/subtitle rendering to the lowest common denominator among the various western streaming platforms. The good/old subtitles in the ASS format required a more complex playback system than what Netflix/Hulu (and maybe blueray players) currently offer. This could be worked around by burning the subs into the video stream, but then you need to keep separate copies of your (large)…
It's an X*N*N problem: n_videos, bitrates, formats. Assuming each video in its largest bitrate is... 2gb for example, and assuming S3 is $0.025/gb, that's a nickle per month or let's say $0.50/yr for that video. Next up is reduced bitrates, assume you go from 2gb to 1gb and finally 500mb. Round up and you're at $1/video. Now duplicate it to AV1 and MP4, and multiply that by English, French, and Spanish (oh, and let's…
S3 is >100x more expensive than hosting it yourself. You shouldn't argue about things being expensive using cloud prices.