Project files have been updated to version 6.0 (original post has been updated as well). Please PM me for the temporary download links until the files are available in a more permanent location.
The goal of this release was to get in one last push for global coverage before Harmy's big Star Wars Despecialized 2.5 release--not only by adding new languages, but also by trying to ensure playback compatibility across the widest possible range of devices. Quite a lot of the effort behind this release was just to get subtitles working better on ancient DVD players attached to CRTs, for example.
Some of the updates in this version are not trilogy-complete (Indonesian and Polish), and once these updates are completed for the entire trilogy, I plan to release another updated version (probably not anytime soon). However, I considered some of the other completed updates to be important enough to release the project in its current state without waiting for the pending updates.
Rough summary of changes:
- Added two new languages: Korean (unverified) and Indonesian (verified--Star Wars only, updates pending for other two films). We're (mostly) up to 26 languages now!
- Added Mandarin/traditional, as used in Taiwan (unverified)--I know there are official versions of these, and Cantonese too, on the Region 3 Taiwanese GOUT, so I hope to be able to update these with verified (scaled) subtitles later as well. Now that we're venturing into multiple writing systems and dialects within the same macrolanguage, calculating an exact number of languages supported by this project depends on how you define a distinct language, and I don't want to get into that business. So, as of this bullet point, I'm no longer keeping an exact count of supported languages. We've got around a couple dozen, and that's good enough for me.
- Major improvements to Polish subtitles. Promoted Polish status from "unverified" to "verified" (Star Wars only, updates pending for other two films). Thanks, Feallan!
- Fixed numerous minor punctuation problems in English subs, and even fixed some actual text errors in Jedi. I'm so embarrassed that I'm still finding English text errors...
- Fixed the framerate problem with 720p Thai subs.
- Gave up on trying to right-align double-dialogue in Arabic. It never worked quite right anyway (my rendering software barely supports RTL scripts as it is), so now it's center-aligned.
- Used a better scaling algorithm (hqx) to scale graphical-only subtitles (Japanese and Thai) from SD to 720p. I felt that the old upscaled subtitles didn't look bad per se, but were distractingly anachronistic--more like the onscreen text you'd see playing Super Mario Bros. in 1985 than watching a Blu-ray in 2013. The new ones are still neither as nice nor as flexible as the rendered subs for other languages, but until I can find volunteers to transcribe these subtitles into text files, these new upscales should be adequate for most purposes.
- Fixed a problem in 720p subs that would cause them to display improperly in VLC (they would appear for only one frame).
- Fixed a problem in DVD subs that would cause them to display improperly on some older hardware players (they would shake between scanlines). The fix for this issue requires that the DVD subtitle file sizes be nearly twice as large as those from earlier versions.
- Instructions for converting subtitles to other formats have been updated to ensure better compatibility with more authoring software and playback devices.
- Repositioned all DVD subtitles slightly so that they display nicely regardless of whether the player is in widescreen (16:9) or letterbox (4:3) mode (i.e. in letterbox mode, each line of a subtitle is now either entirely in or entirely out of the frame). This is relevant only for hardware DVD players--software players and Blu-ray players always use widescreen mode for anamorphic DVDs and just pad the top and bottom of the image for 4:3 displays. Subtitles in letterbox mode are not CIH-safe. Due to this widescreen/letterbox business and some other DVD arcana, I am now recommending against using matching subs on DVD projects.
With so much focus on issues of quantity (number of languages, number of playback devices), I hope more focus can be given to issues of quality in Project Threepio. I can personally vouch for the quality of only the English subtitles. Even the verified subtitles, while certainly good translations overall, may have occasional errors and inaccuracies. The unverified subtitles may vary anywhere from quite good to merely intelligible.
I'd love to get more community feedback on the quality of our non-English subtitles. With the release of a major Star Wars preservation which includes these subtitles, that may just start to happen.