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Early days of fansubbing post series

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Sindobook:
The purpose of this thread is simply to be an online placeholder for one of my own documents, please don't post to it or add commentary, if you want to do either of those things, make a new thread.

Sindobook:
Foreword
--------
I wrote this document b'cos I wanted to share what the 'early days' were like.
I get asked this type of thing from time to time, so I figured I ought to
write it all down and just reference the document.

Caveats
-------
Bias:  Critical thinking teaches that any source, especially human ones, are
biased.  I do not pretend to be unbiased; certainly anyone who reads this will
with a critical eye will be aware.  At times, I was deep in the "Dirty War" of
the time, and my views reflect this. 

Personalities:  I find myself to be of the 'old-school' variety when it comes
to doing things online.  I never divulge any real-life information, I don't
particularly like to 'chat' and I don't seek real-life relationships online.
In this document I call people by their 'nicks' or 'psuedonyms' because I
know no other.  There's pleanty of negative stuff in this document because
that is the way it was back then.  For all I know these people could have been
okay people but I saw only their online personage.  Note that my long-term
memory is not perfect, sometimes I mis-capitalize or mis-spell people's nicks.
Please don't ask for private logs.  I talk of people who were, at the time,
in the public 'view', so it's not like I'm outing anyone.  What I found out
due to private conversations, when relevant I do my best to summarize what was
said, that's all I can do.  Recognize that providing logs doesn't necessarily
provide any more 'believeability'.  If you are to believe that what I am saying
is fake, than I don't think a log would change that, even a log can be faked.

Facts / Accuracy:  I can only gaurantee it from own perspective.  I've heard
numerous times people cite digisub groups that existed before what I call
first generation groups.  I don't doubt there were groups before own term
"first generation" groups, just that I wasn't involved in them or aware of
them, so I cannot comment.  Seriously, it's just one's own perspective. 

Own Nicks:  Please don't ask me, I don't even remember them all.  I used a lot.
For credits, I never used my own nick, I had a 'trademark' instead.  By
'trademark' I mean similar to something a criminal leaves at every crime
scene in order that the cops know it was their crime and not someone else's. 
These days, I think I have it down to just 3 or 4 unique ones. 

Own headers:  Sections are headed by titles, for reader convinience.  While
I spend a lot of time describing the war, it doesn't mean that it was the
highest priority at the time.  Just that such a thing takes more time to
explain, being unfamiliar territory to most people out there. 

Self-absorbed:  Pardon me if this document seems self-absorbed.  All I can
do is tell what happened from my own perspective.  I cannot tell another's
perspective, and I certainly cannot speak for everyone of the time.  If you
want to get a full, accurate view of the early history, you should read stuff
from a variety of sources, not just me. 

Sindobook:
Part 1:  Pre-digisub (~1997 to early 2001)
------------------------------------------
Before digisubbing, I was involved in video capture of VHS tapes.  I worked
with many people to this end, in order to get our files out for free.  There
were few P2P sharing programs back then, and none that were reliable for
large video files.  So the main channel for free distribution was anon
FTP sites like www.animedownload.net.  Another free channel was a weekly
site called Lunaarts run by Shulace.  But bandwidth was highly limited.  If
you wanted something back then, you generally had to be willing to trade or
get in some of the 'private groups' with their own private FTP servers. 

My own motives in doing this were quite simple.  I was in a VHS fansubbing
group myself and even participated in an occasional project (mainly providing
or transcribing scripts, timing, etc.)  We didn't like the distros out there
who were making money by distributing fansubs back then.  We figured out that
even 'reputable' distros were making profit on the side, often to the tune of
around $10K every 3 months or more.  Wanting to put a stop to this, I took
up free internet distribution with pleanty of other folks. 

This started around 1999 to 2000.  Digisubbing was in its infancy back then, I
remember adding subs to a few episodes of Minky Momo digitally.  It wasn't
distributed too far, though, I think an episode might have made it onto
Lunaarts but that's all I remember.

When I first started doing encoding everything I did was MPEG-1 (encoded
using LSX-MPEG or TMPGEnc) 352x240.  The files were designed to fit 4 per
CD-R.  For its time, the quality was top-notch (better than VCD since it was
variable-bitrate).  Filtering was done in VirtualDub only (no avisynth). 
When divx311alpha became avaliable, I switched over to that since it offered
somewhat comparable quality with significantly reduced filesize.  Most of the
public FTPs were pretty limited in terms of bandwidth.  Occasionally I would
find someone with an EDU account and pleanty of bandwidth to spare, but these
types of setups were temporary and rarely lasted more than a few months. 

Either way, my stuff was getting out there.  I would monitor the trading
site noated.com and others, checking 'for trade' lists to make sure it was
being spread around. 

Since I was creating high-quality video captures of shows that were otherwise
hard to acquire, I had an 'in' among traders and I could work myself into
private groups as necessary. 

One of these groups was a hotline site known as "animefactory", run by paQ. 
I remember it is little more than a trading ground and a place where encoders
could exchange information and techniques.  These were the early days of
"DivX" (divx311alpha, a hack of MS-MPEG3) and encoding was something of a
'secret art' back then.  The only other person I remember from this site
was Satoshi.

As far as equipment, I started out using a Pinnacle MP10 which captured
straight to MPEG-1.  While it was limited to 352x240 resolution, it could
capture realtime to 3mbit/sec MPEG-1 (DVD is about 9mbit/sec max) which meant
few detectable artifacts yet filesizes were manageable.  Eventually I wanted
more resolution so I got an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 capture card that could
capture 720x480 realtime uncompressed.  While space limited it to one or two
encodes at a time (each encode took up 20-30 gigs for a 23 minute video clip)
the quality was noticeably better.  VHS capture needs a lot of noise processing,
so in the case of the latter, I could do all the filtering on uncompressed
source which meant quality was about as good as you could expect from a VHS
capture. 

At the time, the freely avaliable video out there was mostly pirated stuff
from local DVD releases, mostly in formats like .rm (40mb for an episode)
or .vivo.  These provided fair graphics quality, at least good enough to
read the subtitles, but very poor framerate (3-5fps if that) and a poor
perceptual resolution (160x120 was typical for a 320x240 resolution file).
Most of these formats required a propietary player that was, at minimum,
very annoying to use. 

Sindobook:
Part 2:  First-generation Groups (up to early 2001)
---------------------------------------------------
Eventually paQ started an IRC channel and a digisub group.  So I was a
de-facto 'member' of that too, even if I did very little.  Back then, the
big thing was "love hina" and animefactory subbed that.  Other fansub groups
of the time included elite-fansubs (subbed vandread, others), animempeg,
etc.  I refer to these groups as 'first generation'.

First generation groups had a leader who generally ordered the other members
around, and made decisions regarding the group.  When a member in animefactory
subbed 'Risky and Safety', a rather girly shoujo anime, the leadership refused
to release it since he was afraid it would tarnish the animefactory name among
the fanbase of the time (primarily guys).  People like me found this attitude
disgusting and I quickly and silentlyleft their private IRC channel, not caring
to return.

Very few of the anime released by the 1st generation groups was of any
interest to me.  Shonen shows like vandread, love hina, etc.; these were
the norm.  'Risky and Safety' was later released by a VHS subber known as
Sachi's Distribution.  I captured and distributed it, just like everything
else I had access too (that hadn't been licensed). 

Other groups of the time were elite-fansubs, anime-fansubs, etc.  At the
time, I had no knowledge of them, other than their existance.

How were things different back then compared to current?

For one, all this took place on public IRC servers like efnet or others. 
Channels were protected by bots, and bots were only as good as the people
who owned and ran them.  From time to time a group's channel would get
'taken over', by an infiltrator from another group who had gained their
trust, another bot, a mistake, or a split in the group.  It would typically
take a few days to recover the channel.

As far as other types of attacks, like DDOS, 'script-kiddie exploits',
viruses / trojans, etc., I know people talked about them and feared them, but
to me it seemed like, just talk and threats.  I had heard of a few cases, but
the incedence of those cases was no greater than what happened on the IRC
networks of the time. 

Distro was mostly done through irc bots.  Groups would actively seek members
who could help with distro.  Many groups had private FTP dumps with all their
own stuff and other stuff too, access to the dump was a privilage of people
in the group and sometimes their close friends and/or high-bandwidth distros
on their public channel.

Many groups had only one member to fill each function.  Often, these people
were territorial and felt threatened if anyone else who could fill the
same function was allowed to join.  An encoder, for instance, insisted on
being the sole encoder in the group, and the group would use him to encode
all their shows. 

Some groups experimented with different structures, such as a project-
based structure with individual project leaders.  But even with these improved
structures, territory issues, political powergaming, and one-upmanship was
not uncommon.  Most groups had a delicate political balance, newer members
would have to tread lightly as to not make the old gaurd 'feel threatened'
since the old gaurd could expel them from the group.

Translations were often not from direct Japanese.  Often they were from
Korean or some other language that the shows had already been subbed in.
Some of the translations were notoriously bad, but, by and large no one cared.
Many translators insisted their translations were 'perfect' and would not
allow editing or QC'ing beyond simple gramatical fixes. 

One of the most annoying things some groups did with their encodes early
on was to add a constant logo or group animation in the corner.  It was,
to say the least, annoying.  Animefactory had some turning gears, I can't
remember what elite-fansubs had.  Fortunately this practice didn't really
stick. 

It wasn't uncommon to find 'difficult' people around this time who were
regardless empowered by those around them.  I remember in my public encoding
discussions I would always have to deal with people who had attitude problems
or had some kind of 'axe to grind'.  For instance someone who would constantly
berate VirtualDub and Avisynth b'cos he disliked Avery Lee (VirtualDub author).
Despite their annoyances, these people were often enabled by groups and others
around them, sometimes 'just because' and other times they provided something
of value to the group like distro or expertise. 

Sindobook:
Part 3:  Second-generation Groups (early 2001 to late 2001 and onward)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

(origin)

Around this time, I think it was late 2000, 2001, many of the 1st generation
groups started to fragment.  Not only were more people getting into digisubbing,
but internal to groups, members were leaving primarily b'cos they disliked the
leadership, or they were getting forced out by politics and 'old gaurd'
territorial issues.  One group that was formed around that time was AnimeCo. 
As a reaction to the first-generation groups that most of these people were
in, most of the second-generation groups had a much more relaxed atmosphere
and leadership without any real power. 

I don't know who the first 2nd-generation group was.  Once there were a few
second-generation groups, I think it started something of a 'snowball effect'
since people recognized that 2nd-generation groups could survive and anyone
that was disinfranchised or seeking to get 'in' to a first-generation group
but denied was welcomed by the 2nd-generation groups.  It was around the time
that bakamx was formed (by former members of cutemx).

Elite-fansubs had become the most notorious fansub group of the time.  Many
second-generation groups were formed primarily by people who had left or
become dissatisfied with them. 

Compared to the numbers of today, digisubbing was in its infancy.  Download
numbers were in the thousands, not the tens or hundred of thousands.  With
most distro taking place on public IRC channels, some of these channels would
be in the 1000+ member range. 

(Own Groups)

AnimeCo was subbing Momoiro Sisters and I happened to have the DVD raws for
it so naturally I joined.  AnimeCo was an open group, led by Stryker / Kei
mostly b'cos he was the only one who cared to handle the politics between
our group and others.  I took part in the Momoiro Sisters project and later
led the effort to get Kero Kero Chime subbed.  I took minor roles in numerous
other projects.  I also handled a lot of the 'cold war' effort for the hostile
environment of the time.  Important members in AnimeCo at the time included
satancow, patapi, recca, mashadar, ruzuka (probably a member in name only, but
important nonetheless), etc. 

Outside of subbing, AnimeCo also did things like play starcraft and other
online games.  Some members didn't even participate in the subbing at all,
being an open group you didn't need to be involved in the subbing in order to
be a member.  Also, when it came time to sub something, AnimeCo formed an
internal subgroup within the group to sub it.  You were pretty much free
to sub whatever you wanted, as long as you could gather the people to work
on it and it wasn't pornographic.

Probably the most distinct project I worked on was Kero Kero Chime.  This
was a cute, hyperactive shoujo anime that drove many poor translators and
other folks insane.  Every few episodes we would have to find a new translator,
editors, and the like.  One thing I remember using was a typesetting system
where the color of the character's hair matched the subtitle, for times
when everyone was talking at the same time.  Which happened quite often for a
hyperactive show like this.  To this day, Kero Kero Chime is still one of the
most popular shows among real-life friends, even ones who otherwise don't like
anime. 

Socially, AnimeCo was largely a free-spirited, whimsical type group.  Some
people referred to themselves with sarcastic, self-proclaimed titles like the
"King of Poo".  More than one guy had "little sister complexes" and two
members were going out with each other in real life (or at least, we were made
to believe tha they were).  Some people were artists and could draw pretty
well. 

Early on, I remember some limited internal conflicts between own self and
some of the other people in the group.  Like when I criticized the animation
quality of Run=Dim, one of the shows another guy was subbing.  But these
things were largely dispelled by Stryker's leadership.  After that, people
pretty much agreed not to openly criticize the shows other people were
working on inside the group. 

The difference in a group like this was the 'empowerment' of the people who
did the subbing work.  For instance, not everyone in the group liked or even
approved of Kero Kero Chime, but regarless, even if someone was strongly
oppposed to subbing it, no one could stop it as long as people were willing
to work on it.  This 'indepent workgroup' mentality was often the norm in
newer groups, in contrast to the top-down command and territory mentality
that was the norm in older groups. 

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