As some might have noticed, there’s been an update to our little informative header. A few more episodes have been through the QC. Episodes 18 to 25 waiting to be fixed now.
Ninjaedit: The Yotsuba mentioned in my post was just a reference to the Yotsuba Group, since the episodes just QC’d was about them. And since he’s now done with that little arc. Haven’t you guys watched Death Note at all?
I’m now very much sick and tired of this project, and it’s time to get it away, so I can focus on other, more interesting things. Therefore, I’ve finished fixing up a few episodes, and when gorken returns, I can get the required fixes for episodes 15 and 16, and start nagging for some more.
Update: He’s back, and I’ve fixed up those episodes as well. Nagging has begun, but doesn’t seem to have an effect.
Keep watching the header to know what’s done and what remains. Can’t be bothered to type it out here as well.
Final update to the post: Removed the summary, and moved it to the header instead. Every new update will come as a new post, so it registers as a new feed entry for those using that.
Update to the update to the update: Some progress at last. Some spare time, so I commited a few tiny changes to a few episodes. Meaning that the QC-fixups for episodes 3, 4, 6, 11 and 13 is mostly done. Also fixed up a typo in ep30.
Update to the update: Seems that this is a bit hard to understand.
WE. HAVE. NOT. DROPPED. THE. REWORK.
Better now? It’s not dropped for Christ’s sake. It’s just the usual delays and lack of interest, as we’ve already informed about plenty of times. Therefore, kindly shut your pie-holes, and wait patiently along with everyone else. It will be done, eventually.
Update: I address you tonight not as the President of the United States, not as the leader of a country, but as a citizen of humanity, the QCer of TSR. We are faced with the very gravest of challenges. The Bible calls this day “QC” – the end of all errors. For the first time in the history of the planet, a species has the technology to prevent itself from its own errors. All of you praying with us need to know that everything that can be done to prevent this disaster is being called into service. The human thirst for excellence, knowledge; every step up the ladder of science; every adventurous reach into space; all of our combined modern technologies and imaginations; even the wars that we’ve fought have provided us the tools to wage this terrible battle. Through all of the chaos that is our history; through all of the wrongs and the discord; through all of the pain and suffering; through all of our times, there is one thing that has nourished our souls, and elevated our species above its origins, and that is our courage. The dreams of an entire planet are focused tonight on that one brave QCer traveling into the heavens. And may we all, citizens the world over, see these events through. God speed, and good luck to you.
QCer will prevail!
2008-08-11 The QC Marathon is ON! 42.195 hours of QC.
As promised I will try to do a full QC batch of all the remaining episodes. Although the earlier rumors about the QC starting at 0800 turned out to be nothing but lies, I will start as soon as I have made myself a delicious breakfast and not stop until the job is done (expect severe delays in this segment of the marathon).
Now I’m in the mood to do something Death Note-related. But…
Therefore, nothing being done after all…
…is not something we do. At least not lately. So I thought I’d make a little post explaining things.
First, I got a job. Full-time until school starts in about a month, and then part-time from there, which means I won’t have so much time to work on other projects, such as Death Note (which I assume is the project most of the visitors here is interested in). Now, this isn’t actually so bad, since I don’t have very much Death Note related work at the moment. We’re just waiting for some QC, and then I can start doing something again.
And that brings us to our second problem, our QCer. He too works a lot. And has a girlfriend. And other things he would rather do. So things are going slow. Got a mail from him 11 days ago with a list of fixes for the three first episodes. Which proves that things are getting done. Albeit not as quick as many of you surely hoped.
Thirdly, the report contained a funny line:
“ep02 —> 09:25: subs gone”.
I naturally assumed that somehow the timing of that one line was botched, so it didn’t show up, but as it turned out, every single line from that moment on was gone. And not just lines with zero duration or accidentally marked as being a comment, or something like that. They were gone from the file.
Now, “how could this happen?” some of you might think. As it turns out, quite easily. When I was done timing, I had to “syncronize” the styles, so that each file had the same styles, since consistency is important. Instead of opening every single file in Aegisub and copy-pasting the right styles there, I decided to write my own little tool, which, creative as always, I named ruby-subtitles. Since it’s written in Ruby, and made to alter subtitles. Ingenious, is it not?
So my library, and very untested ASS-parser got it first test on our scripts, and failed magnificently. Turns out it barfed when it encountered a comment, and silently stopped parsing the file. Which is bad, since I added a commented out line whenever the eyecatchers appeared, and so there was plenty of files with only half the subtitles present.
Luckily this doesn’t really affect anything, since we use Subversion for our scripts, and the fix was as simple as reverting back to before I commited my synchronized files, fixing ruby-subtitles, and then trying again. Only I haven’t done that last part. So our QCer is stuck with the old scripts where parts of them are only half. Until I fix it. Which will be soon. I promise.
Finally, we conclude this wall of text with another problem. And this might very well be the biggest problem of them all. We are not interested anymore. It started out fun, but I lost interest very quickly. Even before the first version was completed. And then the rework started out promising, but faded even quicker. And the QC-guy is the same. Which kind of explains why none of us really want to do any Death Note-related work after a day of full regular work.
The way I see it, we have several options:
This is just me rambling. Nothing has been discussed with the rest of the staff, since he’s out real-lifing yet again. But even so, I’m the one with the final say in the matter, and I would like to hear some opinions. Which is why I enabled comments for this entry. And IRC is always acceptable as well.
Just commited my the two last episodes to the repository, so the end is near. Now I’m going to eat, and then do some final checks, making sure that we use the same wording for the rules, all episodes having the right styles and things like that, and then we only have to wait for the QC to be done.
Our QCer was planning on watching several (a lot) episodes in a row, but real life intervened, and it doesn’t look like he’ll have time for that in a while, so instead, he’ll watch one or two episodes, give his report, and then do some more whenever he gets time. But don’t worry. It’ll get done, and won’t be too long now.
And again, unless we know you personally, we probably don’t want you to help QC or anything. At least not officially. If you’ve noticed some errors with the old releases, do tell, but you won’t get access to the new scripts until they’re released.
Yes, we’re still working.
No, we’re not going to drop Death Note.
No, we haven’t dropped the special.
Yes, it will be done after the rework.
No, don’t download the old releases.
Yes, the QC takes forever.
No, it’s not my fault.
Yes, it will be finished.
Yes, we know the QC is slow.
No, we don’t want you to be our QCer.
Yes, he will be whipped if he doesn’t start soon.
No, it’s not too late to suggest changes/improvements (IRC or mail)
Yes, you may do whatever you please with our encodes, scripts, styles or any combination of them.
No, you don’t have to credit us.
Yes, you may even sell it, because no matter what we write here, if you feel like it, we can’t do anything to stop you.
Yes, I know you probably have a clever question that’s not answered here. Goto IRC
Short answer: don’t.
The reason we’re doing the remake is that we’re not satisfied with the current versions, and would want everyone to download the new release when it’s ready.
But, if you insist on getting them, our unofficial xdcc-bot, [TSR]Laith, has them all. And we also have the old torrents (and the first batch that I accidentally uploaded anonymously)
I would however, suggest that everyone waits for the new releases.
…sucks. That is all.
The decision to cut previews has met some resistance. A few people actually dropped by on IRC to complain about it.
Since we’re so democratic and all, if you have any opinions, feel free to drop by our channel (#TSR) and tell us within a week as of this post (meaning before the end of 2008-06-08).
End results:
9 resisting, 6 in favor, 1 care.
Therefore. Previews stays. :/