530632 - explore localizing the personas video

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Marketing :: General, task)

Description

[Suneel]

Seth and I spoke about the possibility of localizing the video marketing is creating to personas uplift. Purpose of this bug is to explore this further with Marketing, Web Dev, L10N, and any other groups that would be involved.

Comment 1

[Seth Bindernagel]

It sounds like the Get Personas video could have nice global appeal and is something that will have a lifespan for several months going forward.  Because of this, I think the video should be localized using subtitles.  

We are presently in an extraordinarily busy time, so any l10n before the year end on this video might be unreasonable.

But, we should explore the technical requirements.  We did a lot of nice work for the Five Years of Firefox campaign.  Specifically, you can see from this link that we assigned a time stamp to each string of the video copy.

http://viewvc.svn.mozilla.org/vc/projects/fyfx/trunk/locale/en-US/en-US.srt?view=markup

Here is a bit of the javascript.

http://viewvc.svn.mozilla.org/vc/projects/fyfx/trunk/javascript/fyfx.js?view=markup

I am sure there is more code in the FyFx project that I haven't referenced that we could use for the Get Personas implementation.

Project managing the actual string translation is something that the l10n-drivers can work on in good time.  But, I do believe that we should be setting up the video so it can be localized.  I think morgamic would have to look at his team's bandwidth over the coming quarter to see if his team can work on this.

Comment 2

[John Slater]

From talking to Seth, it seems like the next step is to figure out the technical feasibility of localizing the video. Mike, can you let us know what it would take to make this video localizable?

Once we have that info I can work with Seth on a plan to get this localized and into as many places on our web properties as possible. (note: it's ok if this work slips past the 3.6 release)

Thanks-

Comment 3

[Tara (musingt)]

Hi everyone.  Wanted to refresh our conversation (and this bug) on localizing the Personas video to see what the appropriate next steps would be, and in particular, if there are any action items for me.  

The final Personas video is available in both Mp4 and Ogg.  We're promoting it in a variety of areas, focusing mainly on en-US pages since the video has not been localized.  For your reference, the current distribution list can be found here: https://intranet.mozilla.org/Personas_Marketing_Video

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.  Otherwise, I'll look for updates from Morgamic and/or Seth.

Thanks.

--------------
Personas video in Ogg: http://people.mozilla.com/~afranquet/getpersonas.ogv

Comment 4

[Ryan Doherty (:rdoherty)]

Can we get the final transcript for the video? I'll need it to give to localizers to translate.

Comment 5

[Seth Bindernagel]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Can we get the final transcript for the video? I'll need it to give to
> localizers to translate.

If possible, do you mind if I manage the work flow to the localizers?  I think webdev will have its hands full with other parts of implementing subtitles, I can take the management of string translation.  Ryan, does that sound cool?

Tara, do you have the transcript and time stamps in the video when the spoken lines appear?  We had this for the FyFx video.  Here is a reference: http://svn.mozilla.org/projects/fyfx/trunk/locale/en-US/en-US.srt

Comment 6

[Tara (musingt)]

Hey Seth,  

I don't have a transcript, but I can certainly draft one by just reviewing the video.  In terms of the time stamps, I can try to plug those in as well.  It just may not be with 100% precision since I'm not using any special tools other than the video box and my ears.  Let me know if that works, and I'll work on getting that to you as soon as I can.  Or if there's a better way of doing it, please let me know that, too.  Thanks -

Comment 7

[Seth Bindernagel]

Thanks, Tara.  That'll work.  Send me the first draft when you have it.  The localizers fine tuned it last time.  We might be able to have a volunteer do it again this time around.

Comment 8

[Tara (musingt)]

Attaching a first draft.  Since the video is very short (roughly one minute), the time stamping needs to go a level deeper to really be precise.  But, this should definitely help kick things off.  Let me know if you need anything else from me.  And thanks again for your help!  Looking forward to having this localized.

Comment 9

[Tara (musingt)]

Attachment: Personas video transcript

Comment 10

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

I'd like to suggest that we put the subtitles (the text content, not the timestamps) in a php file somewhere in server/ and wrap them with gettext calls "_()" with a proper l10n comment saying "L10n: Video subtitles, part N". This way they will show up in messages.po after the next string update and will be easy to localize with the existing tools (po editors, verbatim etc). It's simply to avoid having localizers deal with another file format. We can then generate the required .srt files from php somehow, I suppose.

Also, AFAIR, the correct format of a SRT timestaps is X.XX.XXX (with milliseconds).

Comment 11

[Seth Bindernagel]

(In reply to comment #10)
> I'd like to suggest that we put the subtitles (the text content, not the
> timestamps) in a php file somewhere in server/ and wrap them with gettext calls
> "_()" with a proper l10n comment saying "L10n: Video subtitles, part N". This
> way they will show up in messages.po after the next string update and will be
> easy to localize with the existing tools (po editors, verbatim etc). It's
> simply to avoid having localizers deal with another file format. We can then
> generate the required .srt files from php somehow, I suppose.

I second this.  Perhaps even more strongly stated, let's plan on wrapping subtitles with the gettext "_()" call unless webdev comes up with a compelling reason not to do this.  We can use Verbatim to gather translations more quickly.

> 
> Also, AFAIR, the correct format of a SRT timestaps is X.XX.XXX (with
> milliseconds).

Stas, any recommendation on how we can get a more accurate timestamps?  

Tara, can we have access to the video so we can try to get a more accurate time signature for each string of localizable text?  Is it available for testing?

Comment 12

[Tara (musingt)]

Seth, yes, the video has been available.  I had the link posted in comment #3, here it is again:  http://people.mozilla.com/~afranquet/getpersonas.ogv  
 
You can also find it on the Mozilla.com homepage, and video page, on stage (among other places).  Please let me know if you need anything else.  Thanks.

Comment 13

[John Slater]

(In reply to comment #12)
> You can also find it on the Mozilla.com homepage, and video page, on stage
> (among other places).  Please let me know if you need anything else.  Thanks.

http://www-3.6.stage.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/?video=personas

Comment 14

[Ryan Doherty (:rdoherty)]

I will have the strings into po files by eod today, but I'll still need exact timing for each string. Also planning on having en-US with subtitles up on stage for a demo by eod.

Comment 15

[Ryan Doherty (:rdoherty)]

r60148 adds the subtitles for l10n & a rough proof of concept for video subtitles (to be improved)

Comment 16

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

http://viewvc.svn.mozilla.org/vc/projects/getpersonas.com/trunk/server/templates/subtitles.php?view=markup&pathrev=60148 looks great, although I'd try adding l10n comments so that localizers know these strings appear in the subtitles (I know the string location is stored in the .po file, but comments are generally more discoverable).

Something like 

<?= /* L10N: Subtitles, part 1 */ _("I sit in front of my computer all day long.");?>

should work just fine. extract-po.sh should be able to pick these l10n comments up.

Would be great to get this in before Verbatim syncs (btw. does it sync automatically, or do we have to push strings updates to it?)

One final comment: the current positioning of the subtitles seems a bit too low. Subtitles "sit" on the bottom edge of the video and overlap with the browser window pictured in the video. The browser's persona change every second making reading the subtitles harder.

Comment 17

[Seth Bindernagel]

(In reply to comment #16)
 > Would be great to get this in before Verbatim syncs (btw. does it sync
> automatically, or do we have to push strings updates to it?)

Gandalf will have to work on hooking it into Verbatim.  Filed bug 540178 for that.

Comment 18

[Leszek Zyczkowski]

(In reply to comment #16)
> One final comment: the current positioning of the subtitles seems a bit too
> low. Subtitles "sit" on the bottom edge of the video and overlap with the
> browser window pictured in the video. The browser's persona change every second
> making reading the subtitles harder.
Staś, Yo're right. Please make as was on 5 years Firefox.

Another one, subtitles aren't displayed localized. Try https://personas.stage.mozilla.com/pl/

Comment 19

[Leszek Zyczkowski]

(In reply to comment #16)
> One final comment: the current positioning of the subtitles seems a bit too
> low. Subtitles "sit" on the bottom edge of the video and overlap with the
> browser window pictured in the video. The browser's persona change every second
> making reading the subtitles harder.

Staś, Yo're right. Please make as was on 5 years Firefox.

Another one, subtitles aren't displayed localized. Try https://personas.stage.mozilla.com/pl/

Comment 20

[Ryan Doherty (:rdoherty)]

Problems noted in previous comments are correct, I just added the strings, will fix the issues soon.

Comment 21

[Ryan Doherty (:rdoherty)]

r60216 adds comments

Comment 22

[Ryan Doherty (:rdoherty)]

r60384 moves text above bottom of browser window in video.

Comment 23

[Tara (musingt)]

Old bug.  Closing.  Thanks.