leosmith Posted May 15, 2007 at 05:12 PM Report Share Posted May 15, 2007 at 05:12 PM I just ordered a multi-region DVD player (I'm in the US). Some questions: 1. Is there any way to get subtitles in pinyin? 2. Any ideas on where to buy (cheap) DVDs in Mandarin? 3. Can someone suggest some good titles? I prefer movies with realistic conversation, and standard pronunciation. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
againstwind Posted May 16, 2007 at 04:50 AM Report Share Posted May 16, 2007 at 04:50 AM 1. Is there any way to get subtitles in pinyin? Probably no. It's quite easy to find Chinese, simple or tranditional, subtitles on the net, for example at 射手网 www.shooter.cn But as far as I know, no one makes and uploads pinyin subtitle. I think, however, you inspired me that pinyin subtitle may be useful for Chinese learners. 2. Any ideas on where to buy (cheap) DVDs in Mandarin? You can find places, public or secret, where cheap (usually pirate)DVDs are sold in most cities of China. But you're in the US... Why not download films from the net via P2P like Emule? 3. Can someone suggest some good titles? I prefer movies with realistic conversation, and standard pronunciation. Do a search work on this forum. Many others have given their recommendations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted May 30, 2007 at 03:18 AM Report Share Posted May 30, 2007 at 03:18 AM 1. Is there any way to get subtitles in pinyin? The problem is that DVDs store subtitles as images, rather than text (eg ASCII/unicode). I think there's free software for ripping these images into a separate file. But to get pinyin, you'd need to OCR the files. It might not work well, because the subtitle resolution is quite low, & it might be laborious (if the OCR software couldn't handle multiple images automatically). It's a real shame actually & makes DVDs VCDs etc less useful for learning Chinese than for most other languages. When your tingli is good enough, you can often look up the characters in subtitles quite quickly by pronounciation. But it could take a while to reach this stage... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlk123 Posted May 30, 2007 at 10:50 AM Report Share Posted May 30, 2007 at 10:50 AM Hi Leo to question 1: Do you mean like this? (see attachment) For computer usage one can convert a character-subtitle (SRT format) into a pinyin-subtitle. Or you can hear Mandarin, see Simpl.Chinese and English subtitles. All three at once. Yeah! 2: I prefer YesAsia or .... if you have time ... emule 3: at this moment I choose: o Rice.Rhapsody.2004 海南雞飯 from Singapore/HongKong (YesAsia US$13). o Chinese Style Divorce 国式离婚 from China. To learn Simpl.Chinese I prefer movies from mainland China .. f.e. movies from Zhang Yimou. But Rice-Rhapsody is easier to "understand". With your perseverance you will .... in no time! Have a nice time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlk123 Posted May 30, 2007 at 11:26 AM Report Share Posted May 30, 2007 at 11:26 AM or this ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted May 30, 2007 at 02:23 PM Report Share Posted May 30, 2007 at 02:23 PM I stand corrected! HLK123 tell us how you do it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
againstwind Posted May 30, 2007 at 02:24 PM Report Share Posted May 30, 2007 at 02:24 PM Amazingly! Someone have really done the work. Applause! Chinese Style Divorce is quite worth watching, I think. The hero Chen Daoming and the heroine Jiang Wenli are both excellent Chinese playactors. But seemingly there are some mistakes on the picture. “能不能便宜一点呀” Neng2 bu4 neng2 pian2 yi yi4 dian3 ya1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnmck Posted May 31, 2007 at 12:27 PM Report Share Posted May 31, 2007 at 12:27 PM Wow, that is great:shock: How do you convert Chinese character subtitles to pinyin? I'm currently watching Chinese Style Divorce and pinyin subtitles would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted May 31, 2007 at 01:05 PM Report Share Posted May 31, 2007 at 01:05 PM Wow, that is great How do you convert Chinese character subtitles to pinyin? I'm currently watching Chinese Style Divorce and this pinyin subtitles would be great. Seconded! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlk123 Posted June 1, 2007 at 12:19 PM Report Share Posted June 1, 2007 at 12:19 PM Hello 1. the first captured picture from the movie "Rice Rhapsody": a) In Internet I found a Chinese subtitle file in SRT-format. B) I used HanConv to convert it into pinyin. That's easy and "always" correct! 2. The difficult method and "always" incorrect! For the "Chinese Style Divorce" I could not find Chinese subtitle files. But in Internet (veryCD) I found video-files with Chinese subtitles. I extracted the Chinese subtitle with a software named esrXP. That's why f.e. the 4th character is false because the OCR-part did not "see" correctly. Instead of esrXP I used subOCR as an OCR-program because I don't understand esrXP fully. One can use Wenlin to "read" the extracted Chinese subtitles. OK .. first you must correct the false characters. The 5th and 6th pinyin-error (?) are the work of HanConv. againstwind .. thanks! If you are patience and can read Chinese .. you can read in the website of esrXP about it's usage. http://ideasoft.hp.infoseek.co.jp/esrXP/ And then .. you can tell us in this forum how to extract a Chinese subtitle better .... with less errors! Thank you I think THIS is not a boring method to learn real Chinese .. without waiting till one has memorized 2000 Hanzi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted June 1, 2007 at 01:02 PM Report Share Posted June 1, 2007 at 01:02 PM hlk123, why don't you post your hanzi subtitle files here (Roddy permitting). Then we could try to correct them jointly... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlk123 Posted June 1, 2007 at 06:53 PM Report Share Posted June 1, 2007 at 06:53 PM Hello OK ... these are the first 3 Hanzi-textfiles in a SRT-format. I've changed the extension from .srt to .txt .. You can edit it as a normal textfile. As you know .. CSD has 23 video files! BTW I read somewhere ... someone who tries to learn Hanzi must be a masochist ... !? divorce-01.txt divorce-02.txt divorce-03.txt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted June 2, 2007 at 01:22 AM Report Share Posted June 2, 2007 at 01:22 AM hlk23 - that's brilliant - thanks very much! For anyone else using the files, they're GB212, so they don't work properly in Notepad. MS Word 2003 opens them OK though & lets you save them as UTF-8 text files. I'll see if I can produce versions in a more user friendly format. eg line no / time / text Keep 'em coming! (when you have the time!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlk123 Posted June 2, 2007 at 12:39 PM Report Share Posted June 2, 2007 at 12:39 PM Hi onebir How about moving to a new thread with a name something like: "Chinese Style Divorce - how to extract Chinese subtitles"... ??? I think someone in this forum has asked how to extract from an embedded (Chinese) subtitle in a videofile. Maybe somebody want to see CSD although s/he still cannot read online the Hanzi. This is a kind of bootstrapping .... "to reach this stage" earlier ... (to use your formulation)! OK .. I'm going to upload all 23 raw srt-files.... one at a time. You know .. I need more than 1 hour processing time to extract one subtitle of CSD! First I've to convert the videofile from rmvb to avi .. to parametrize esrXP by trial/error .. to throw away the bad OCR data .. etc.etc. .. 23 times! The subtitle resolution (of CSD) is quite low (as you've said). divorce-04.txt divorce-05.txt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted June 2, 2007 at 03:25 PM Report Share Posted June 2, 2007 at 03:25 PM HLK123, I think the info here answers the questions the OP asked initially. & anyone who searches fof CSD will find the info... I didn't realise the process was so tricky, so thanks again. I imagine no one will mind if it takes you a week (or three) to get the whole lot done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlk123 Posted June 2, 2007 at 06:09 PM Report Share Posted June 2, 2007 at 06:09 PM @onebir OK .. you'll upload the corrected Chinese subtitle files of CSD here ... right? Maybe someone will translate it into English? Yeah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted June 3, 2007 at 01:31 AM Report Share Posted June 3, 2007 at 01:31 AM OK .. you'll upload the corrected Chinese subtitle files of CSD here ... right? I'll do my best. Could take quite a while... With a bit of luck others will chip in. Re translation, that's an even bigger job. & there are chunks I don't understand even though I know / have found all the characters. But if we have accurate subtitles, we can easily ask on this forum, so I suspect in time it'd be possible to produce a pretty accurate & complete translation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leosmith Posted June 3, 2007 at 02:19 AM Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2007 at 02:19 AM Hi folks, Wow, I was really surprised to see that hlk123 had figured out. Nice work! I just stopped checking after the first couple responses. So is Chinese style divorce a movie, or a TV show, and how do I get it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onebir Posted June 3, 2007 at 02:16 PM Report Share Posted June 3, 2007 at 02:16 PM So is Chinese style divorce a movie, or a TV show, and how do I get it? It's a 23 episode soap opera (中国式离婚). But depending on how long you've been doing Chinese etc it may be quite difficult to follow. If you want to try, hlk123 mentioned sources above: 2: I prefer YesAsia or .... if you have time ... emule Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlk123 Posted June 3, 2007 at 04:43 PM Report Share Posted June 3, 2007 at 04:43 PM Hi onebir In a blog I read about CSD "... Amazingly, there are even websites devoted to the translation and analysis of the script." I've searched several times but no success. Maybe you have some Chinese keywords to google .. (or to baidu)? Do you know (by chance) the names of those websites? Thanks. PS. I know ... it's a Long March project ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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