creamyhorror

Oh, I see. Computers less than 5 or so years old should be able to play H.264, even high-definition (unless the CPU's a budget model maybe), so yours might actually be a codec problem. I can point you to assistance if you happen to be interested. With regard to "definitive subs", I'm not sure what you're referring to, since fansubbers generally don't re-translate series that have finished airing and are completely subbed. Or are you referring to DVD subtitles (I don't think most shows come with Japanese subtitles)? I see you imparted quite a bit of personality to Elmo and Carmen. I think it's certainly suitable for Elmo, and subbers should probably render him that way in subs. Ranka, Sheryl, Alto, and the rest are a bit harder to distinguish in dialog style since they basically use typical adolescent patterns. Also, if you still aren't clear about "The owner knew why the sales jumped so high so quickly, but her employment became an issue with his rules.", I think it should be "Apparently, the owner, hearing that business had shot up, decreed that she would be used [for the CM] instead." edit: translation changed slightly

If you happen to watch our subs, do give feedback then (since I don't know if you're referring to ours). Also, link to your Nyan Fro translation?

There's really not much reason to get the modified-GG subs. We (gg) release at 1280x720 now (since the show switched at ep 11), encoded from the original digital source (a 'transport stream') - a single encode step from the source. The "modified" and "foganime" versions, on the other hand, are almost certainly twice-encoded versions of the original, i.e. one more encode step than ours. A second encode step only reduces quality irreversibly, and the only thing you gain is...fancy karaoke. Any slight improvement from the slightly higher resolution is doubtable, since Frontier was clearly not made at 1080p resolution, but it's completely negated by the terrible video filtering they apply (over-warpsharping, resulting in distortions of shapes.) Frontier was not made at 1080p, but it's been upscaled to and broadcast at that resolution - thus, most reputable encoders resize it to 720p for release. The extra 'resolution' is basically wasted bytes. edit: Screenshot comparison: http://www.itsnotlupus.net/macf/ - check out the loss in subtle details. If you were downloading the modified/foganime versions for higher video quality, you're making a mistake. Kei is Chihiro, actually (translator split off). They rely on reasonably accurate Chinese subs which I refer to as well, but we always wait for our video capturer to obtain the Closed Captions in Japanese for us so that we can be absolutely sure about our translation (and we spend some time in the edit/quality checking phase). Hence they have things like "Cliff Spark" instead of "Griffith Park". Video encode-wise, ours are certainly better since Kei/Chihiro doesn't have access to transport streams - they're a purely speedsub group, "translate --> timing" being their motto. We used to provide transport streams along with Closed Captions to Lunar as well, but due to some issues, we stopped at ep 11 or thereabouts, which may explain any fall in their translation quality. I can assure you with some confidence that we have virtually no outright translation errors, with the sole exception of maybe a few small ones in ep 9 (for which we couldn't get closed captions due to a messup).

What sort of conveying of personality are you referring to? I like to think I do what I can in my translations, but maybe you have some particular suggestions or examples?

The original Japanese is 第１世代型マクロス艦, which is literally "first-generation model Macross ship". I translated it as "A first-generation Macross" in our (gg's) sub, for better or worse. In any case, Japanese viewers are also confused about whether it's the original, a copy, or something else. I don't think so. Our translation of the opening lines: 'What is their reply?' 'The same. "Hurry up and show us this Protoculture song."' 'They also demand that we yield to them.' Our scripts are available at http://ggkthx.org/Scripts/MacF/ if there's anything else you want to check.

VLC can't handle anime softsubs properly. Get the Combined Community Codec Pack, developed specifically for fansub playback. It includes two media players you can use, Media Player Classic and Zoom Player. For those having trouble playing back our release, it's due to the fact that this ep was broadcasted in high-definition (HD), so we switched to 1280x720 resolution accordingly. CoreAVC is the most efficient decoder for H.264 video, so it may help if your computer is struggling (note that it's pay software). If you have it already, you can try disabling deblocking in the CoreAVC options (at a loss of visual quality but significant increase in decoding speed, which will hopefully allow the video to play smoothly). Our .ASS script is also available at our website, but you'll need to get a raw video that matches (and even then the match may not be exact). We use a TBS raw, the one without sponsor credits after the OP.

Just a correction, but we (gg) always release within ~10hrs of Frontier airing on TBS. Concerning this comparison, some of the points leveled against our translation are fair - however, ep 9 was the only episode that we did not use Closed Captions for translation because of an unforeseen capping error, and the translator for the first half of the ep made a few mistakes. We apologize for that. I can assure you every other episode we've released has no mishearings and probably no outright errors (though I'm of course prejudiced, being one of the translators).

I had to register to clear things up (I'm one of gg's Frontier translators). Our leader isn't gone, any "drama" was manufactured as a joke, and we released Macross a few hours earlier than usual this time. I invite any feedback on translations, if you think we've made mistakes and so forth.