drencrom Posted June 16, 2011 at 06:21 PM Report Posted June 16, 2011 at 06:21 PM Where can I download Chinese movies or TV with subtitles in .srt format? Usually, with Chinese subtitles, they are burned into the screen instead of included as a separate file. This is bad because I can't copy & paste the words into my online translator. I just want to sit down with a movie or TV show and go through the words one by one, then watch the show again with only the character subtitles, then watch again with no subtitles, until I understand everything. Simplified characters and Mandarin pronunciation, of course. I know tons of free Chinese video sites exist online, but there are no separate files for subtitles. Please, no English movies with Chinese subtitles. As for the topic of such shows, I'm not hopeful but presumably something halfway interesting exists. Costume dramas, dating shows...ugh. Quote
jbradfor Posted June 16, 2011 at 07:04 PM Report Posted June 16, 2011 at 07:04 PM Chinese movies on DVDs might be your best bet. Your local library might have a couple, otherwise you might need to use bit torrent or something similar. Most of the rips from DVDs on bit torrent do not have "hard subtitles". Quote
haohaohao Posted June 16, 2011 at 08:32 PM Report Posted June 16, 2011 at 08:32 PM Torrents. Download your movies/shows. And then head to subscene.com or opensubtitles.org. Search there, you'll get the srt file. Quote
googed Posted June 16, 2011 at 09:08 PM Report Posted June 16, 2011 at 09:08 PM I think there are a couple of simplified Chinese websites that do that but it's been long and I've since forgotten their names. If your video sources usually fall from the back of a truck, then you should get your .srt files from a subbing website like any listed above. Quote
renzhe Posted June 16, 2011 at 09:35 PM Report Posted June 16, 2011 at 09:35 PM shooter.cn is the name of the Chinese search engine for Chinese-language subtitles. I gave up on the endeavour. During the 80-something series of the First Episode Project, I think that we only found 1 or 2 shows which had .srt subtitles available somewhere on the net. The rest is hard subs. It would be a better bet to look for transcripts, because these actually do exist from time to time. Still, it's rare. Out of the 80-something TV series, we found transcripts for 6. And only one series had the complete set of transcripts. Some have several episodes. Check http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-series-recommendations-and-index-thread/ for the best summary we have on this forum ATM. 家有儿女 and 奋斗 are your best bets. The first one has 10 episodes of transcript, the latter has 5 -- and posters here did most of the work. Quote
drencrom Posted June 16, 2011 at 09:43 PM Author Report Posted June 16, 2011 at 09:43 PM Yeah, torrents. Thanks, I already knew that. <_< Any particular suggestions out of the thousands of titles out there, some of which are corrupted, out of sync, or poorly transcribed? Just because I download an .avi and then find an .srt doesn't mean that they'll sync together, or even be accurate. Been there, done that. I checked subscene.com and opensubtitles.org and the Chinese subsection appears to be mostly Chinese translations of English, Korean, and Cantonese shows. I was hoping for more of an answer like: "Sure, there's this series XXXX with .srt files, 30 episodes long, not too terribly boring. Good general vocabulary, not too many overly specific words not in general use, like on those nature documentaries. Download it from YYYY or search on ZZZZ." Or maybe: "Here are some movies you might not hate, AAA BBB CCC DDD EEE FFF GGG, all of them downloadable from YYYY." Quote
renzhe Posted June 16, 2011 at 10:37 PM Report Posted June 16, 2011 at 10:37 PM That's exactly what I posted. The caveat is that soft subs for Chinese shows seem to be exceedingly rare, and that the government has cracked down on filesharing sites recently, so many of the links are not valid anymore. Quote
jbradfor Posted June 17, 2011 at 12:00 AM Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 12:00 AM I've had near 100% success with torrent of movies. In fact, almost all of them come with soft subtitle files. There is more than one thread here on movie recommendations. Quote
drencrom Posted June 17, 2011 at 07:33 AM Author Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 07:33 AM Thanks for the great tips renzhe! Your experience is what I feared, that there just aren't many shows with .srt subtitles. I certainly searched enough and didn't find anything. jbradfor, can you recommend any particular titles? I'd appreciate knowing some solid hits before I start downloading. I've gotten too many .rar files with burned-in subtitles to try randomly. Quote
Silent Posted June 17, 2011 at 04:00 PM Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 04:00 PM Jbradfor, which torrent search engine(s) do you use? Most of the torrent search engines I know/use have limited number of Chinese torrents. Quote
jbradfor Posted June 17, 2011 at 05:01 PM Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 05:01 PM IMHO, if you can get the DVD of the movie, that's usually your best bet. You can rent it (library, netflix) if you don't want to keep it. can you recommend any particular titles? Maybe you could pick a movie that looks interesting to you, and then we'll find a torrent? You'll be spending a lot of time with the movie, so it's better if you like it! You might find these useful http://www.chinese-f...chinese-movies/ http://www.chinese-f...lm-you-watched/ http://www.chinese-f...chinese-movies/ http://www.chinese-f...-chinese-audio/ http://www.chinese-f...rning-mandarin/ I'm certainly no expert in this. I've only d/l < 10 movies via torrent; I try to get them from netflix or our library if they have a US release, only use torrent if they don't. But everyone one I've download has not had hard subtitles. which torrent search engine(s) do you use? Google Enter the movie name and add "+torrent" I usually just use the English title, and that seems to have worked out fine. Quote
stivb Posted June 17, 2011 at 05:30 PM Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 05:30 PM I found the srt file for Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee) here: http://www.subom.com/sinfo/53753 It seems to have many other films - but I did try to download some, but the format seemed strange. Anyway, try that. Steve Quote
drencrom Posted June 17, 2011 at 08:26 PM Author Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 08:26 PM OK, over 30 minutes of searching and I can't find a torrent for the first ten episodes of 家有儿女. So far I've gotten: private tracker only, tracker down, no seeds, download our .exe file to get the episodes (uh, no), file not found, and links back to youku. I tried the youku link but the bitrate is so low, it's hard to see the characters on the screen. Yeah, I have the transcript .doc (thanks to someone for making that!) but one reason I wanted .srt files was to use VLC's excellent subtitle rendering to make the characters clear and large, and on the screen at the same time I'm watching the show. I have trouble with reading anything but clear block Chinese characters. Any help? Quote
jbradfor Posted June 17, 2011 at 08:34 PM Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 08:34 PM Not from me. As I said, I've only had luck with movies, not TV shows. When it comes to TV shows, I would respect renzhe's experience that "I gave up on the endeavour. During the 80-something series of the First Episode Project, I think that we only found 1 or 2 shows which had .srt subtitles available somewhere on the net. The rest is hard subs." Quote
renzhe Posted June 17, 2011 at 09:02 PM Report Posted June 17, 2011 at 09:02 PM eMule is far more popular for seeding TV shows than torrents. I've never managed to download any TV shows through bittorrent. Some older verycd.com links might still be valid, but they've killed most of those (verycd is an indexing site for eMule). Still, using the search functionality within eMule will usually let you find some seeders. And yes, .srt files for Chinese TV shows simply do not exist. If they exist online, then they are hidden so well that it's not worth it. You might have better luck with movies. The reason for this is that only Chinese people watch this stuff, and they mostly don't need subtitles. They all have hardsubs because this is how the shows are aired -- with hardsubs. Quote
Gleaves Posted June 18, 2011 at 12:23 AM Report Posted June 18, 2011 at 12:23 AM Searching for torrents of tv shows is a pain. Sometimes the show name plus "bt" also works. Googling "家有儿女 bt" lead me to here which has a seeded torrent file. Low quality rmvb with hard subs (but they are pretty legible). rar with torrent file attached. I am also seeing it in emule but I'm not getting much of a download speed. Like renzhe, I kind of gave up looking for soft subs and transcripts and have just accepted hard fuzzy subs. Edit - Also fyi - this series actually had a textbook made about it. 家有儿女.rar Quote
drencrom Posted June 18, 2011 at 12:36 AM Author Report Posted June 18, 2011 at 12:36 AM Thanks so much everyone! Well, at least now I know it's not me. I don't know how many times I've banged my head against the wall on some topic or other, only to find out later that everyone but me knew how to do it. Thanks to Gleaves for the link. Ten episodes should keep me busy for a while. Thanks to renzhe for his project, that's a lot of hard work and I'll be utilizing it! I've always looked forward to when I considered myself good enough at Chinese to benefit from studying popular entertainment, and thanks to everyone's help, that moment has now arrived. Onward to the next level! Quote
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