well, maybe i wrote too much XD.

i guess to sum it all up.. quality over quantity any day of the week, cept maybe wednesdays cos it’s my day off and i like to catch up on my anime >_> no no no.. quality first.. yeah.. believe it!

Releasing anime with the correct quality is important. Releasing HD media in SD or the same in reverse is retarded, it lowers the quality overall and in the latter situation makes filesize bigger while doing it. Don’t give in to people who are too lazy to work an extra 5 hours a week in order to build a computer capable of handling tiny little HD anime subs; 5 year old hardware can manage them.

Picking up good anime, that you like to sub, that you think other people need to see, especially if no one else is doing it, is what you should do. Don’t sub something 5 other groups are doing or 15 have done before. Unless there is a new source to work with (where the quality is better) it will be a pointless exercise.

Hardsub or softsub? Use whichever type is needed for the action you are attempting to perform.

The thing I really hate though is getting the English wrong. Using there (as in over there), when they should be using they’re (they are) or their (it’s their ball.) We get this in scanlations too (another bane.) So accurate translations, but using grammatically correct english are my main deciding factor. Speed is nice, but I prefer accuracy (I’ll grab a speed sub and replace it later.)

Finally, quality of image and sound. Poor image or sound can kill your enjoyment. HD is preferred for new series, DVD rips for the older ones. Uncensored is a must where fan-service is involved. mkv with h264 and acc is a must for the latest series, while xvid and mp3 is fine for older ones. Just remember, not everyone has a high-end pc capable of handling the former (my old x1950pro had some problems with the former, while the new h4770 plays full 1080hd without problem), so releasing in both formats is the ideal.

Everything else in your poll is inconsequential.

JBV^_^

from a fansubbing group’s point of view: reputation / notability (possibly through selection), because it’s what keeps your group alive and thriving and motivated in the long run.

from a fansubbing individual’s point of view: consistency, as it is one defining quality of your own work.

from a consumer’s point of view: speed and reliability, and to a lesser extent reputation and consistency (and soft/hardsubs), as they help you pick a fansub that matches your expectations. the latter two “to a lesser extent” because they are less obvious, less explicit qualities, as they require you to do some research on the group in general and the release in particular to form an opinion on them.

Which brings me directly to reputation / market dominance / prominence. Speed gives you a certain prominence in the market, which in turn will get people interested into joining your group to help out. Slower groups will invariably suffer loss of personal unless they sub special interest material or deliver extremely high quality. Ratings will also reflect this, as they depend a lot on whether you fulfill the expectations of your audience.

As for reliability, in fact it DOES matter if the group is the best or the fastest – if you’re neither, people aren’t going to care all much whether you keep subbing a show. The slower and worse you are, the less they’re going to give a shit if you drop the show, unless you’re the only group subbing the show at hand. Basically I expect a steady and reasonable release rate, be it weekly or monthly.

By the way. Current Yabai SetoHana release rate: Once every 6 months. Estimated date of completion: March 2020. I’m not sure what to think of that, regarding “reliability” and “speed” (But I’ll make sure to enjoy “My Bride Is A Mermaid” as released by Funimation in 2010 while waiting for your subs. Maybe.)

Selection should be up to the fansubbers in my opinion – within reason. While there’s no point in having 6 groups sub the same show, neither is there a point in working on a show you dislike and consequently doing a less than optimal job at it. That aside, selection is hardly important to the fans (as they’re usually fans of certain genres, rather than being fans of certain fansub group.) Though sticking to a certain genre may help you bring new people aboard more easily if you need to do so. See reputation etc above.

The last two points really belong to part 1 of your post in my opinion.

Consistency is in my opinion just a part of every single job you listed, and largely depends on how well all participants (or a project manager) define the parameters of the project when starting out, and how well the individual project members stick to them afterwards.

Softsub/hardsub: See my comment on part 1 as well – as for signs, do it RIGHT or don’t do it at all. Applies for hardsubs even more than for softsubs. Readability and unobtrusiveness are paramount, everything else is secondary. Softsubbed karaoke should be as simple as possible, especially on HD video, or preferably not there at all. Also, hardsub karaoke can go screw itself. Hard. With a cactus.

In the end, speed is the one thing that will affect my own choice the most – however, depending on how badly I want to watch the show RIGHT NOW. If I’m following an ongoin shows, I don’t mind that much if a group releases a couple days or a week after a given episode airs, as long as I do get my weekly fix and they don’t fall behind much. For older shows I hardly care about speed as I normally don’t pick up older shows if my group of choice isn’t way ahead of me.

I am NOT going to argue with you,

but I must warn you that that’s not math we are talking about, when it comes to human affairs (simple) logic doesn’t work: because what seems “logical” for one person (you, in this case) isn’t guaranteed to be “logical” for another person (me, in this case). And vice versa.

#2 Speed & Reliability
Well, it’s not like I’d go with a speed-subs group just because they’re fast, but, when a group takes several months to release 1 episode, I’ll just lose interest. It’s even worse if the group announce months later that they’ll drop the serie because they’ve also lost interest in it.

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“Why SOFTSUBS? Because DO NOT FUCKING EDIT ANIME! YOU ARE SUBBERS, NOT THE AUTHORS, NOT THE CENSORS! HANDS OFF THE VIDEO/AUDIO TRACKS! YOU HADN’T CREATED THIS ANIME, SO IT’S NOT FOR YOU TO EDIT IT!”
Following your logic, they shouldn’t even sub the anime : they’re not the OFFICIAL subbers, they have by no means got the rights from the authors or studio or whatever legal claimants, and they didn’t CREATE the ORIGINAL SCRIPT.

That being said, I do prefer softsubbed animes. If the group feels like using hardsubs for TS or Karaoke, then they have to make it looks good.

Sky Girls subs 1-26 DVD with Specials 1-9 (9.27 GiB) found. Took me 10 seconds to find =D