WK1

Are you one of the volunteers at MDL? If so, I want to say to you honestly and to your face, not behind your back.

Yes, it is very simple to make a decision like this: As long as original source split into 2 parts, you will do likewise. No exception. No matter what is the reason. This decision rule is very convenient for you, because you need not make any future decisions in such matter. One simple rule decides all such matters from now to the infinite future.

But, why do you even create the MDL pages in the first place? Isn't it to allow all of us to discuss all the dramas? And so if, don't you think you need to think of things from our perspective too? What will make it easier for us? After all, some of us will be hanging around the pages for months for a single drama. The flipping back and forth is not just for a day or two, but likely for months.

When both Parts of a drama are screened so close apart, when one flows to the next seamlessly, people may need or want to discuss both concurrently. Do you not think that the most convenient thing is to combine both pages into one?

If you are not sure, then, let us tell you, yes, it is better, it is more convenient for us, your users, regardless of what the producers do. Producers do not care what happens on this page, how inconvenient it is for us users of the MDL pages.

How you wish to deal with this feedback is up to all the volunteers, but as 'customers' who are using the MDL pages, we are giving you our honest and unadulterated feedback.

Discussing in this forum has taken enough of my time. Creating another forum to discuss both titles together will mean discussing this in another forum.

When both parts are screened so close together and the storyline flows seamlessly from Part 1 to Part 2, combining two parts into a single MDL page makes most sense. Anyone who wants to discuss this drama will come here. They need not look for another thread, or for someone to point them to another thread.

Pearl Eclipse got their airing license before the new rule came into effect. If you look at more recent ones, like Royal Feast and The Autumn Ballad, all forced to reduce to 40 and many of the fans there are not happy.

No. I implied that with good explanation, maybe someone higher up will be willing to combine the two pages into one, for the sake of all of us who may wish to discuss both Parts concurrently, since both are screened so close together.

If they are 2 years apart, no issue. By the time the 2nd part is out, we are completely done discussing 1st part.

And there are people constantly coming to part 1 to ask about subs. So, some of us will need to be here, always explaining them why we need to wait. Combininng two parts into 1 will lessen this burden for us.

The 'you' in my statement is not you. It is the person whom I thought has the final decision making authority. Read my sentence carefully and you will understand me. You thought the 'you' refers to you. Maybe that is why you feel that I am being disrespectul?

Hessa has since explained to me with an example, why MDL will not combine even when two parts are shown back to back. I understand why MDL made this decision. But this is truly a special situation, where Part 2 will be shown, when the English sub for Part 1 is not even out.

If the English sub for Part 1 is out, we will not need to flip back and forth. When we are done discussing Part 1, we move to Part 2, likely never to come back to Part 1 again.

Anyway, this decision not to combine is making it rather troublesome for us to discuss TBW. Flipping between Part 1 and Part 2 is going to make some of us giddy and confused, as the two parts are so connected.

I think I will stop coming to this page till the English subs are out. I will get giddy and confused flipping between the two pages.

That is not my intention, to be disrespectful to anyone. I wanted to explain why the need to combine the two parts into one, given the special circumstance that there is no English sub for Part 1 of TBW and hence we need to flip back and forth between Part 1 and Part 2.

I merely thought you do not have the authority to make such a change and may need someone higher up and thought I could explain to that person.

Subs for Part 1 should be out no later than end of April. Part 2, no indication thus far

I have asked the person who gave this response to give me the contacts of the person on top of the food chain. Maybe can knock some sense into that person.

When I asked one of the volunteers to combine the two parts of TBW into a single page, this is one of the answers I received:

We won’t combine them.
They have different release dates. And the broadcasting/production companies split the story themselves.
We are only following the official sources.

The end of this discussion.

Just below this, Kateyln already posted the trailer with subs.

I can totally see you are coming from, that dealing with overseas licensing issues and protecting copyrights are very critical to companies like Huace/Croton, and that licensing issues may have changed since 2019. Even so, even if there are changes, I would imagine these are just incremental changes. And dealing with Netflix is not new to Youku. They just licensed Word of Honor to Netflix last year.

I mean, TBW has been in their portfolio for months. They knew TBW would be ready around March. There was an drama/movie exhibition in Hong Kong recently, and Youku was promoting TBW in that exhibitation, which surely must be targetted at regional markets and not just HK. If so, it must mean that they are ready to tackle the licensing issues for different countries? Whether dealing with Netflix or with the broacasting entities of the various countries in the region, they should have been ready.

All I am saying, yes, the subbing issue isn't all that difficult to handle. So is the licensing issues. And they have so many different departments at Huace/Croton, so one could dealing with subs, another with licensing concurrently. Neither looks like particularly good excuse for them to delay showing it to international viewers.

I think only Youku/Huace/Croton know the true reason(s) and they are not likely to reveal the truth to us. If they refuse to reveal the true reasons, their oversea's image will suffer. International viewers will feel slighted. From a business viewpoint, that is bad, that they could think that because the China market is so big, they do not need to think about international viewers' sentiments.

Ok, it is her real voice, but it is not taken off air, if you know what I mean. They dubbed in the studio, after filming. Hence, the voice we hear in the BTS may not be the same as that in the drama itself.

Here. Let me show you.

See this page for TBW? https://wiki.d-addicts.com/The_Blue_Whisper

All the voice actors/actresses names are there, next to the characters.

Now, look at the same page for YAMG:

https://wiki.d-addicts.com/You_Are_My_Glory

You will see that no voice actors/actresses names are there, showing that all of them used their own voices.

I agree that doing the subs will not be all that difficult. Given its large population, it should be really easy for them to find effectively bilingual people and do it quickly.

If not subs, what other reasons? Croton Mega Hits is no stranger to showing dramas on its YouTube channel. Surely they must be aware how to deal with broadcast regulations and copyright issues?? For instance, even as I type this comment, I could flip to Croton Mega Hit's YouTube channel and watch Love and Destiny. That drama was aired in 2019. And going even further back, TOMPB is also shown on the same channel. They are hardly new kids on the block.

Concerning ad revenue, not sure how that works for international viewers, cause I can watch Love and Destiny right now, completely free of any ads. So, the only source of revenue would be subscription to Croton Mega Hits, if TBW can only be viewed via paid subscription. So yah, ad revenue seems like a non-factor for international viewers. But, I could be wrong. Love and Destiny is an old drama, hence no ads. TBW is new. So, there could well be ads shown intermittently. Furthermore, I am new to Croton Megahit. Not sure if they have two kinds of membership: Normal and VIP. No ads for VIP members but ads for non-VIP members.

By the way, I am not really watching Love and Destiny. Just using it as an illustration for the sake of our discussion.

Ok. It is totally simple for MDL to combine the two into one. Just close that page, and label the top of this page Part 1 and 2. Should be a piece of cake their software people.

We will come back to this page for discussion, when the Eng subs are out.

Ok. Maybe most people would do that.

Oh, for Dilraba's modern dramas, she usually dubs her own voice. So in YAMG, that was her own voice. And it was lovely. Modern dramas are shorter. And they require less tonal finest. The word they used most often is timbre. Historical dramas used ancient Mandarin that has different timbre from modern Mandarin. That is what I read from online articles.

Dilraba very likely could dub her own voice in all her historical dramas. But, to get the right timbre, she may need to spend hours and hours in the studio, after filming. This will delay the production process, as voice dubbers are so good, they can do it at a fraction of the time and costs.

This likely explained why she dubs her own voice in modern dramas, but they use a professional voice dubber in her historical dramas.

Sorry, do you mean you will go over the MDL page for Part 2?

Haha. I tend to be a bit long winded. Still learning how to be more concise. Good to know so many people feel the same way about the quality of the dubbing.