Like many things in the fandom, preferences for the quality of anime viewing, whether it be fansubs or official releases, is something that varies among fans…
For me, subtitles are one of the first things that come to mind when thinking about quality. I personally can’t stand watching anime with poor quality subs. I know many fans aren’t fussy and will watch the first sub that comes out, but I would rather wait a little longer for a better viewing experience. I tend to avoid speed subs (with the exception of BSS ‘Bullet Speed Subs’ because they’re actually good quality). When a new season of anime comes around, the first thing I look for is what fansub group is subbing it and whether they’re known for quality releases. Over the years I’ve gotten familiar with the more prominent groups, like Eclipse, Static Subs, Shinsen Subs, m.3.3.w, gg, and the newer Mazui, Mochi, and Coalguys. If the show is being subbed by one of the groups I know and trust, I’ll go with them. But if not, I’ll take a quick look on MAL and see what fansub groups for that show have gotten the most approval. The main thing I look for in sub quality is good spelling/grammar, good timing, and translations that are accurate but also not too literal to the point of not sounding like native English. Other things like consistent translations (having one translation for a specific word and not changing it) and translator’s notes if necessary are nice, too.
The opening and ending karaokes that a lot of fansub groups make are fun, but I don’t need them. I could also take or leave honorifics since I can hear them and thus don’t need them in the subs. I would actually prefer not to have things like “onee-san” (sister) and “nii-chan” (brother) left untranslated because all that does is alienate viewers unfamiliar with Japanese.
The only time I may break down and watch poorer quality subs is if the good subs are simply taking too long to come out. I don’t mind being one episode behind, but I tend to get impatient with more than that. However, I’ll never watch raws of anything but my favorite series (I believe Haruhi has been the only one so far). I don’t have to watch the episode that soon, so I figure why use up time watching the raw when I’m just gonna watch the episode subbed later?
Even though watching anime on streaming sites has become more popular in recent years, whether unofficially on sites like YouTube or officially on sites like Crunchyroll, I still prefer to download the episode via bittorrent rather than stream. When I watch streaming videos, they never run perfectly smooth and always freeze up or skip at certain points in the video, even after the streaming is 100% complete. It could just be faults in my Internet connection or my old computer. I never have that problem when I watch an avi or mkv file on a media program on my computer. Also, the video quality of streams is usually poorer than the downloaded avi or mkv file. And of course, having the actual file on your computer allows you to save it for future viewing and watch it without the Internet.
However, I’m not totally against watching streams. I’ll gladly watch streams of long-running, and usually visually unimpressive anime that I don’t intend to keep, like Naruto, One Piece, and Pokemon. And if free official simulcast streams are offered on sites like Hulu and Crunchyroll, I’ll watch them. I’ve watched Inuyasha: The Final Act, Shikabane Hime, the two Haruhi parody series, Natsu no Arashi, Shangri-la, and a number of Naruto episodes via official streams. I believe recent episodes of all these series were available very close to their airing time in Japan. Like I said, I don’t have to have the first sub that comes out and I don’t mind waiting a few extra days for a good quality or official sub.
I’ve noticed that a lot of fansub groups in recent years have been releasing larger and better quality mkv files. Sometimes a single episode of these could be over 350MB. I usually prefer the smaller size file because larger files put more of a strain on my computer and I’d prefer to save disk space should I want to save the episodes. Luckily a lot of subbers are aware of this and release an additional, smaller “low-resolution” file (remember the old days when most anime fansubs were 170MB each so you could burn three of them on a CD?) Video quality is important to me but it doesn’t have to be top notch – as long as it’s not non-HD YouTube quality or anything, usually the quality of the smaller 100-200MB release is good enough for me.
The main reason I pretty much only watch anime via streaming or bittorent is because I can’t afford to buy DVDs very often and I don’t want to spend money on a series unless I’m sure I’ll want to watch it more than once. But if I have the choice, which I do sometimes if a friend lends me their anime DVDs, I’d prefer to watch the official subtitled DVD releases.
Guess that’s all I have to say as far as my preferences for quality in viewing anime. Yours?
as long as I can read the subtitles it`s good enough for me
Quality is incredibly important. Does that mean I watch everything in HQ? no. I have no patience – if I randomly want to watch something and don’t want to download it, I will stream. That said, I make sure I find a good stream or else I won’t watch it – and since I know every possible streaming site, I can usually find a decent stream.
But man, if you can watch it in blu-ray, that’s something you owe to yourself. I just watched To Aru Majutsu no Index in blu-ray a week ago, and the amazing video quality had a HUGE impact on how much I enjoyed the show.
Zettai ni ariemasen! for streaming.
Im the sort of person that enjoys a show with good quality, brings better result.
anyway even thought my dam internet bill is burning my wallter XD
its a need for me!
Ive also been collectiing the dvd’s or even BD for more enjoyment, thats just me =) ..well not recently since, most of my savings are been going towards figures.
I usually download high quality video files. Since I will convert most anime files that I downloaded into DVD format ( I love to watch anime with 42″ LCD TV and DVD player ), the size is not my concern as I will delete them after conversion or storing them into external hard drive. The fansubs group is one of my concern. For anime like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, I prefer Eclipse subs although it’s a bit late than other fansubs group.
I’m not watching anime in streaming sites because the internet in my place blocks any streaming media sites. So, the only option that I have is to download it in high quality. Although it takes time to complete the download but it’s not a problem for me because I start the download before I go to class and it will complete when I’m back from my class.
I used to stream but not so much now that I have plenty of disk space so the higher the resolution the better. I sometimes hesitate to DL a video if the fansub group is new or it has plenty of negative feedback, in that case I patiently wait for a better known group for a day or two max. As for me, I’m not fond of groups that take too much liberty with translations because they can greatly change the atmosphere of the show. Plus, I don’t think a sub is that great when I can tell with my noobish Japanese that they aren’t doing it right.
For some reason I like seeing honorifics in my anime. When I read the subs I notice that they aren’t there even though I can hear them quite perfectly, it bugs me. Not mandatory at all but I don’t dislike them when they have them. I’m one of those that think TL notes are a necessary, at least for shows where terms that require great explanation are involved. Sure, we could do fine without them but I think there’s something the author wanted us to “know” or “understand” that we wouldn’t get if it weren’t thanks to the TL. Similarly, a fansub group that have them would mean that they put greater effort on their work. That has to count for something imo.
@ arta21
The bare minimum, huh? =)
@ digital boy
It’s a big deal for me when I decide to watch a new series, so I’ll spend the day before downloading the batch torrent. I don’t usually watch new series on a whim and (if you read my post about dropping) once I start a series I’ll stick with it, so I want to make sure all the episodes are available first. But if there’s simply no torrents available, I’ll go with any streams I can find (like I’m doing now with certain episodes of One Piece).
Do blu-ray video files come out okay on any old computer screen? I avoid them because they’re usually huge in size and I want to save disk space.
@ Fabrice
Yes, watching the actual DVDs or blu-ray disks on a nice HD-TV screen would be ideal (if you can afford it of course).
I’m glad I have a fixed Internet bill each month no matter how much I use it. If I had to pay more for stuff like streaming and bittorrent, I don’t know what I’d do!
@ K-NIQ
I have no clue how to convert anything (probably don’t have the right programs either) so I just watch what I can get.
I usually don’t pay attention to the day/time new episodes air. Whenever the subs I want appear on Tokyo Toshokan, I’ll take them. Thus, I didn’t even know that Eclipse is one of the later ones. But I will start to notice if it’s more than a week behind.
I’ve heard that streaming is blocked in a lot of places. That’s too bad. But at least torrents are still around.
@ keikakudoori
I’m trying to save a lot of anime on an external hard drive I have, which is getting filled up already. So the smaller the size of the video files (as long as the quality isn’t crap) the better.
Your preference for fansubs sounds similar to mine. Since I’ve taken many years of Japanese in college, I can usually point out poor or liberal translations.
I like translator’s notes too, I just wish subbers would leave them on the screen long enough for me to actually read them. Usually they go by as soon as the character is done talking, which isn’t nearly enough time to read the TL notes and the actual subtitle dialogue (I have to rewind, pause, and then read the notes). I wish more subbers would put the TL notes at the beginning or end of the episode instead.
When the effort fansubbers put into their work is of higher quality than the official translations (which is often), they have my eternal gratitude. I usually check MAL and AniDB to find the highest-rated releases, and BBT to verify a releases’ quality (hard/soft subs, etc). But streaming is still my first choice (unless it’s awful). If I’m really into the series and buy the DVD/BluRay I generally rip it and mux in subs myself.
I find most subs don’t characterize very well or at all (be they official or fansubs). There’s been few subs that really capture the spirit of their characters, subtle situations, or just context in general. It’s tough to find the sweet-spot between literal translation and localization for a given series, so I sometimes find myself fixing subs when I have the time (and so hardsubs really piss me off). Others in my anime club do the same thing, so that those less-familiar with the language will enjoy it as much as those who do.
Video and audio quality are important to me as well, for series where streaming isn’t available or just sucks. But you’re right, some fansubbers are going completely mental with filesizes.. I guess they think we’re all made of bandwidth or something. I usually only need the scripts, since I can encode my own media. As such I usually appreciate fansubbers most when they offer “the little things”: scripts, patches, and mkv and avi files just in case I don’t care about quality. Trends and fads in the community are always entertaining though, such as the recent fad towards ordered chapters.
@ Topspin
I don’t know all that high-tech stuff with hard/soft subs, muxing, script patches, etc,. I can’t do anything with a sub file except watch it, but since you have the know-how for editing subs to your liking, that’s great.
One way you can tell if translations are too literal is reading the subtitles out loud to yourself with the same emotions as the character (or as close as you can get). If it sounds weird in English then it was probably too literal. I sometimes read the subs out loud when I show my class Chi’s Sweet Home and they sometimes sound awkward that way.
Ya they come in fine, though if the resolution is larger than your screen then you’ll have to fullscreen it to actually shrink it down to your size lol but there are no negative consequences. No sense in going higher than you can handle, but no sense in going lower either.
Generally I don’t care about picture quality.
Subs I don’t give a crap unless they pull out honorifics up the wazoo to the point where it’s unreadable (sup TV-Nihon) or the fonts are retarded (thank god for the version of E7 I have- SRT and ASS for signs, subs, and the japanese commentary track. i always go with SRT on it because the ASSs have intrusive fonts).
When it comes to stuff I watch currently: I get W-Time’s stuff for Kamen Rider W, Ecliptic-BSS for Durarara, Commie for Heroman.
On a side-note, I really like AFK’s post-show notes on name puns in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Makes me want to learn Japanese even more.
720p mostly for me :)
as for fansubs, I just go with groups I know, most of them are very fast and well done already, (except Eclipse, that group can be pretty slow sometimes, though quality is good)
for me though, subs is just so I know what is said, it doesn’t have to be exceptional, since I’m can get a lot of information from the dialogue
I don’t bother with bluray’s since my monitor is only 1680×1040
also I recommend utorrent for p2p, but bittorent is fine too.
I sometimes dl raws for screencaps if the subs are hardsubbed
720p and the best groups I can find if possible, but there are series that really do not deserve more than just the decent fansub group. For series that are not even subbed other than by shitty sub groups or by CR, I just catch them raw if I really want to. I usually look for an alternative first, but there are shows that can just be understood raw anyway.
Video quality wise I guess I was spoiled by Lunar back in 2004 when I first started, on Bleach. So yeah, I go for the best, but not exactly Blu-ray unless it is for archiving.
@ Robert
I have no clue what all that SRT and ASS stuff means. Obviously I don’t know anything about video coding XD Thus I can only watch the fansubs as they are.
Is that AFK you mentioned the same group that did the original Haruhi subs (a.f.k.?) They were really good quality subs.
@ Prooof
I usually go with 480 instead of 720 to save disk space should I want to permanently save the anime on my hard drive. But if I’m just gonna watch and delete, I’ll go with 720.
@ Panther
Sounds about what I do except I’ll never watch raws for anything other than my favorite series (or really easy to understand ones, like Chi’s Sweet Home) and I’ll usually go with the smaller 480 files.
I don’t know the difference, I just know that ASS subs tend to have stupid fonts and SRT don’t.
And yes, it’s the same AFK from Haruhi (most likely)
Eclipse are my favorites when it comes to subbing. Personally, as long as I can watch an episode in fullscreen on my computer without it being all fuzzy than I’m happy. The actual subs don’t tend to bother me MUCH, although the last episode of Working!! had some pretty shitty subs.
MANLY-SUBS are the best.