"sgupta" wrote:Respectfully, many of your assumptions are I feel incorrect, and I'd like to share my logic here. Firstly, though I'm not running the project, I've said from the beginning personally I encourage people to buy the US release of the show (which I do own on DVD, though quite frankly, it's available on both Hulu and YouTube for free as is).
The videos on Hulu and YouTube are actually region restricted, so USA only I expect.
I wouldn't encourage anyone to buy the English DVD releases, since that means specifically supporting an edited English only DVD release.
"sgupta" wrote:The Korean set is incomplete and only has the first 24 episodes minus no. 23 (so 23 total). There *are* things being translated, even for that (intro/ending/certain additions or corrections) and the last 27 or so episodes will need to be for the most part translated from the beginning - very rough/poor English subs exist on bootlegs but will need completely reworked. I do own the Korean release, actually, and it is out of print and extremely rare at this point to the point of being virtually unavailable (I got lucky and also paid a pretty hefty premium to get my hands on this copy). I don't own the Japanese DVD's as there would be no point, frankly, since there aren't any English subs. Though I know Bad Username is buying them for this project. Also, I don't want to speak for B_U, but nobody's forced to make a donation - it's strictly voluntary.
I own the Korean DVD sets too, the subtitles really don't need any corrections for viewing. Subtitles for opening/ending sequences in anime series aren't always provided on DVD releases, and those are minor additions at best.
A DVD release been out of print, still doesn't mean you can provide its contents to anyone/everyone for free.
It doesn't sound like Bad Username owns any Japanese DVD releases or plans to handle the translating of further episodes, judging by previous posts. With Japanese DVD rips via torrents been mentioned, and looking for translator for further episodes.
"sgupta" wrote:I suppose subtitle scripts would be an option, but there are several problems with this IMO. A) People would need to know how to use the script file and B) A lot of people don't know how to get past the region encoding on foreign DVD's, which won't play on most US DVD players or PC DVD drives without special software.
And the exact same could be said for downloading and watching fansubs via the internet. Most DVD players can be unlocked, to be region free.
Buying the Japanese DVDs, means the producers are still been paid for their work.
"sgupta" wrote:If the companies involved would do a proper US release (which I certainly encourage and support), none of this would be a problem of course. As it stands, though, that's not the case. Just my two cents. I can see where you're coming from, but I just don't see it that way.
Except the Korean DVD releases provided the first half of the series uncut, and with English subtitles, for a long time. If you have access to the internet, you have access to a worldwide market.
Fansubs are usually only provided for unlicensed anime, or anime where no uncut versions was ever available. With Japanese DVD releases been used, if they were purchased by the fansubbers.
While this is still a case of providing video (from Japanese DVDs) and subtitles (from Korean DVDs) for free, for the first half of the series. Without any money going to the producers of the Korean DVD releases, or the series.