Prototyping subtitled Drama CD support - feedback wanted!

[mangamangaanger]

"I figured Ogg Vorbis was good enough, it's got better support anyway."


I think you should include Opus, it's significantly better than Vorbis, especially at the low end. https://people.xiph.org/~greg/opus/ha2011/ has some music and speech examples (go down a bit over halfway down the page, to "Per-sample averages", and there are lots of samples that you can click on and listen to). Though that page doesn't really show off how well Opus can do with voices, even at extremely low bitrates.

Furthermore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_(audio_format) says that both Chrome and Firefox support it, as well as Edge and some versions of Opera. That's missing Safari, but is still a large majority of the market share. I think opus at 24kib/s mono and 48kb/s or 64kib/s stereo would be great for the "low quality" option.

Some examples of opus:
https://www.opus-codec.org/examples/

More detailed browser support for opus:
https://caniuse.com/opus

Opus FAQ:
https://wiki.xiph.org/OpusFAQ

 

[caramel-tiger]

I'd rather go with lossless… Assuming there is enough space for that.

 

[KeyMace]

I’d love a full screen mode with big text

 

[Fenderz]

You have my interest in this. I'm a bedridden invalid, and eyesight isn't wonderful, plus I'm half deaf. So an audio version to go along with the manga would totally rock. I hope to hear more about this in the near future. Good luck

 

[TongariDan]

Would it be possible to have a way to just access the subs themselves as a whole? There have been drama cds whose contents I've been curious about, but generally not enough to listen to the thing while slowly reading along. I'd much rather just speed read the whole thing, honestly.

 

[belades]

I'd LOVE this, I've wanted a place to be able to know what goes on in drama CDs for AGES but there's not really any good resources out there.

 

[BlackAeronaut]

I love this idea! There are a LOT of audio dramas out there that I haven't been able to enjoy (e.g.: Kill-la-Kill, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha) because it's rare to see translated scripts for these. (Not to mention a bit of a pain to read along with, even if there are timestamps.)

Another reason why I love the idea of this is because Drama CDs are like a throwback to the radio dramas of old. In fact, IIRC, some Drama CDs are re-releases of previously aired radio dramas in Japan.

Really, I wish they did this sort of thing here in the USA for backstory plots. It'd be awesome to listen to the audio drama during the daytime while you're working, and have that set the stage for the regular TV program.

 

[perck]

+1 for opus as well/instead.

 

[L8Dusk]

I think there is definitely an audience for this stuff, right now the only place I've been able to find drama CDs is on YouTube. There are so many drama CDs that I'm personally very interested in actually seeing some translated. That being said if this where to become a full feature you'd probably want to implement a sort of "transcript" option with timestamps, and I'd personally request an "Original" tag for things that are only Drama CDs or something of that nature.

Honestly though while I think drama CDs are great, I think there's something that would be way more popular. Getting full translations of the promotional radio programs for seasonal anime. I only mention it because it's something else that's audio only

 

[theroachoftime]

It's a pretty cool idea.
Though I'm definitely in the camp of wanting an option to, instead of listening along to the audio, be able to just read the subtitles as if they were a script.
As much as I love manga I'm actually not very fond of anime. Just as a matter of personal taste I don't really like how they tend to be directed or acted.
Judging from this and some other drama cd translations I've seen on youtube I believe I'll have pretty much the same issues with this particular medium.
Even without a script-like option I do think it's worth pursuing for those people who like that sort of style of performance.

 

[BinsoXO]

This is so cool. I would love to see more of this!

 

[Darkmint13]

This is so cool. Really like the idea. Tons of drama CDs out there that I wish I had access to.

 

[Kamikoto]

Wow, that's really cool.

 

[sksk]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but if we could have japanese subs along with the english translation that would be amazing to learn japanese with. so maybe a feature to allow two languages at once? or maybe just an option for the original language's subs to be shown as well.

Edit: seems like its already been mentioned.

 

[witszer]

As a listener with a Soundcloud dedicated almost entirely to keeping up with Drama CDs, having them all together on a sister site to Mangadex WITH translated subtitles would be a dream come true! Especially since there's so much extra material in certain anime and manga series that most don't know about because they aren't as accessible. Of course, a large part of it does come down to the translators' wishes and if they would consider DramaDex a good tool to use. However, with there having been issues with people stealing credit for text translations, a central hub for drama cd translations posted in subtitles that aren't so easy to copy and paste might just be what both listeners and translators are looking for.

Edit:

Spoiler

of course I have to ask, would NSFW drama cds be allowed? 👀👀👀

 

[lonan]

I've read on the thread that both original CDs and ones based on anime and manga would hypothetically be on this. Does this also count drama tracks on albums or OSTs? (Luluco had three on its soundtrack, and things like Kokuhaku Jikkou Iinkai have a couple spaced out)

 

[TimeVolt]

Hmmm... I would definitely be interested in listening to some of them... And if I do eventually learn Japanese, i'd probably be more comfortable translating spoken words (at least at first)... So i'd say a yes from me as both a possible contributor and a listener. EDIT: yay i'm learning Japanese now. great. one step closer to translating manga.

 

[ReaperCreeper]

Huh, neat.

 

[eientei95]

Going from the WebVTT specs, you can do all sorts of things with CSS. It'd be cool to see stuff like this done to distinguish voices, using an example from the page:

video::cue(v[voice="Kathryn"] {
  color: lime;
}

in combination with

00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:24.000
<v Kathryn>I like lime.

would make all of Kathryn's lines in lime. In the case of the prototype subs, you could do

<v "Oyama Mihari">
<v "Oyama Miharo">

and some sort of CSS styling. Do note that the CSS is a separate stylesheet from the subs file, so 2 files will have to be uploaded unless all groups like the styling.

 

[ZdrytchX]

This is quite a nice feature, didn't expect this series to be the first one to be used.. Maybe you could try playing it alongside the respective manga chapter (If applicable) and the CD art displayed somewhere (if applicable)