Quality Checking Guidelines

• tl;dr
• Culture
• General Things
• QC Specialties
• QC Steps
• Review Materials to Ensure They All Exist
• Edited Clip with Appropriate Intro/Outro
• Thumbnail
• Catch Any Proofreading, Editing, Subbing Issues
• Create a Meta Doc
• Ping server manager for release with suggested release time

tl;dr

Monke see mistake, monke fling poo and froth at mouth until mistake is gone.
No one like monke so everyone will do your bidding.
Good video.

Be extremely detail-oriented. Suggest fixes and send the fixes back to each team member. Make sure the fixes are made. Get the video ready to release. Prepare a video description and suggest an upload time.

Culture

The Hololive Resort Subs group was created as a direct response to low-quality, rushed, subpar VTuber translations. We strive for the following points:

• High Quality
• Well-translated
• Paranoid quality assurance

To assure quality, the role of a QCer is vital.
(No one will like you [jk], but you will ensure we put out awesome releases!)

The most important trait of a QC is to be anal. Meticulous, detail-oriented, sharp-eyed, and with common sense. As such, we expect QCers to be individuals that aren’t afraid of going after people, providing lots of details and reasoning, and doing your due diligence in looking up chat history, doing some additional research as necessary to get what you want, or consulting people as necessary. You will spot issues that someone watching a video in the background won’t care, but you do. And it bothers you.

The second most important trait of a QC is that you care. You are likely taking up this role because you want to eviscerate spidsubs, mistakes — which you can spot like a sore thumb — ruin an experience for you. The best QCer cares about the differences between an em dash and an en dash, that one frame glitch where the subs blinked, and the fact that a video used Takeshi-kun for every instance except one, where it was just “Takeshi.” And you want to fix it.

If this sounds like a personality set that aligns with you, then welcome!

General Things

1. QCers should generally use the #quality-check channel to ping other roles in the QC-review process. However, it is encouraged to move into other respective channels if the conversation looks more detailed and thorough.
   • e.g. You are pinging a proofreader and a translator for a particular video to notify them of certain fixes that need to occur in #quality-check. The changes are quickly made and resolved. However, the subber is unclear as to how to apply a subbing fix and needs to consult other subbers. ➡ this conversation is best served in #subbers, with the subber reporting back in #quality-check after revisions are finished.
     
2. QCers should discuss with other QCers using the #quality-check channel to solicit opinions on various feedback. QCers shouldn’t feel bad to start a discussion -- more heads are better than one!
   
3. QCers should use the QC document in order to track and note all changes. It is up to the QCer to make sure all changes are properly made before releasing the video to the next stage.
   
   
   1. Make a copy of the QC document and move it to your project folder.
   2. Provide a link to the transcript and the draft video/s.
   3. Provide timestamps, explanations (preferably with screenshots), and correct highlights.
   4. Use the sheet to keep track of changes as needed.

QC Specialties

HoloResort Translations has three different QC roles: Language QC (LQC), Subbing QC (SQC) and Release QC (RQC).

UPDATED NOTE: The individual steps for LQC and SQC are deprecated in the new workflow. The roles will continue to exist. Please refer to the new workflow guide.

Language QC (LQC)

LQCers are team members from the translators, proofreaders, or RQC pools.
LQC is done at the same time as the Subbing QC.

The LQC reviews the first draft of subbed clips to check both the translation and the proofreading quality. They are expected to be the main quality control for translation and grammatical/syntax issues. LQCs are team members with both source language and target language proficiency. A job well-done by LQC should result in no proofreading issues at the RQC step.

LQCs are expected to point out issues in the TL/PR process and make some suggestions. The revisions are to be confirmed and approved by the translators/proofreaders. LQCs are welcome to suggest a fix themselves.

RQCs may also “throw back” an issue to the LQC for review. It is up to the LQC to decide if the issue can be resolved by themselves or if the TL/PR needs to be involved.

LQCers should be aware of the TL/PR guides.

Note that LQCers cannot volunteer themselves or be assigned to a project if they’re already the translation checker/proofreader for that project.

LQCers should:

• Watch the clips.
• List out issues using the QC document.
• Inform and continually discuss with TLs/PRs until all issues are resolved.

Subbing QC (SQC)

This is a subset of the subbing role and isn’t covered in this document.

Release QC (RQC)

RQCs serve as a “catch-all, last-check” role.
RQC is done at the very end of the pipeline before we upload the video.

The RQC reviews a completed video in full to check every aspect of the video making process with the intention of finding any issues to return to other team members. The RQC should be hawk-eyed and detail-oriented.

• In terms of TL/PR/SB: The RQC is the one to find the 2% of errors that slipped through previous QC steps. The RQC may even disagree with previous QCers for the video.
• In terms of ED/TH: The RQC is the sole reviewer.

The RQC also prepares a video for release by preparing a META document and collecting information relevant to the clip.

See QC Steps for a detailed list of steps for RQC.

RQCers should:

• Watch the finished clip with undivided attention. It is encouraged to watch at least twice.
• Review the actions taken by other members in full, and remove any doubts.
• List out issues using the QC document.
• Inform and continually discuss with team members until all issues are resolved.
• Give the final say in releasing a clip to the server managers.

QC Steps

Review Materials to Ensure They All Exist

• Go to the project folder and check if the following items are in the folder:
  • Final video
  • Most recent .ass file/s (look at the modified date and see if it aligns with the most recent subbed clip/s)
  • Thumbnail
• Collect names for all roles to include in the META doc (from Clipper to QC) [Will be depreciated after Ikari is deployed]
  • If you aren’t sure how to credit them, look up their name in the HLR channel and check how they were credited in previous videos. Otherwise, ask the person in question how they’d like to be credited.
• If any of these files are missing, alert the appropriate person.

Edited Clip with Appropriate Intro/Outro

Check if the clip has an issue-free intro/outro, uses the correct type of intro/outro, and whether its placement is suitable for the video or if there’s a better time to place it.

As of writing this document, the intro and outro videos are located here.

There are 2 types of intro and outro currently being used: Bilibili/non-hololive and hololive.

Thumbnail

There are various aspects of a thumbnail that you should be aware of:

• Check if the people present in the video are easy to see in the thumbnail.
• Check if the text on the thumbnail is readable if scaled to YouTube size.
  • You can use figma for this.
• Consider the “appropriateness” of the thumbnail to the content of the video. The artist should have watched the video to understand what is appropriate.
• If artists have internally reviewed already, skip thumbnail checking.

Catch Any Proofreading, Editing, Subbing Issues

Proofreading

Make sure the video follows the TL/PR guidelines..

• If you have concerns about the TL accuracy, ping the LQC to review the language one last time. It does not have to be extremely careful, just careful enough.
• You are the second person to review this. It should be pretty easy and quick.

Suggest better phrasings for lines whenever possible. Read every line closely.

• Ask yourself if that line would be said by an English speaker in the given context.
• If the line doesn’t feel clear or natural to you, think about why it doesn’t, and come up with a solution to fix the issue.
• If a line in a video disappears too quickly for you to read closely, pause the video at the line, and read it two or more times. You may need to download the video and play it at a slower playback speed.
• If you still aren’t sure about what you suggested or couldn’t come up with anything, ask other QCers for their opinions on how to fix the line/s.

Subbing

Make sure the video follows the subbing guidelines.

• While the SubQC should take care of this, you should still review the subs for any misses. This process should also be easy and quick.

Ideally, every line should be readable and understandable with the display time given for it.

• If you think a line fades too quickly compared to other lines in the video, decide whether extending the lead-in/out or a better phrasing is favorable for that line.

Keep in mind that the subber subs the raw video and you QC the edited clip with an intro, so it’s best to add a screenshot for every line suggestion to avoid misunderstandings.

Editing

Look to see if there are any editing glitches, misses, or stutters. This can include, but not limited to, green-screen issues, weird jumps, suspected issues where parts are taken out or left in incorrectly, or single-frame misses.

Make sure that the video matches the original video’s resolution (usually 1080p, rarely 720p).

Be extra careful of:

• Inserted images/clips: Make sure they do not look overly low-res or unintentionally distorted.
• Audio level between different clips: Do they sound reasonably at level with each other?

When suggesting anything that would affect the latest .ass file, make sure that any editing related to that line/s is also changed or removed.

Inserted audio: Is the inserted audio volume reasonable?

Mood

Consider the overall “mood” of the clip and see if the editing style fits.

In general, clips can fit in 4 broad moods, and the editing style should fit one of the following:

• Comedic (Meme-worthy, comedy bits, gags, etc)
• Exciting (Gameplay, focused effort, cute, motivational)
• Serious (Explanatory, informational, deep)
• Poignant (Reflective, sad, inspirational, cute, teetee)

Provide constructive opinion and advice on how editing should be changed if you feel it does not fit the mood well.

• If memes, inserted clips, or audio are “too much”, this should be part of your feedback here.

Create a Meta Doc

Example Meta doc from a Shion video.

Template: Meta Template (Copy and move to the project folder)

Fill in all sections as appropriate. You may have to do some research.

• Think of a good title! This is very important. Aside from a specific format we follow, what kind of title you write is case-by-case. Avoid clickbaiting and misleading viewers.
• Source link/s, timestamp/s, channel name/s and @mention/s.
• Description - usually does not have to be more than one sentence, unless you’re making it long for the funnies, requires a TL note, or some other valid reason.
• Hashtags

Ping server manager for release with suggested release time

Ping with a link to the final video, META document, and folder link.

Consider this to suggest a release time.

Server managers will sometimes give a cursory review before release.