Participatory Culture Foundation

Start this topic to discuss issues and experiences using Amara on limited internet connections in Timor Leste and West Timor.

In particular in engagemedia.org where Amara is embedded by default in their html5 (i believe) player.

Firstly, congratulations to Amara team that in Timor Leste districts (where we pay by the minute for slow and unreliable cdma mobile connection) we can quickly load the subtitling app, wait patiently for the video to buffer, and turn off our internet connection until we are ready to upload. Heaps good.
Its actually a lot easier than in West Timor, where the adsl2 (i think) connection is on again off again and so is the electricity and we are constantly being logged off to allow for other users to edit the subtitles.

However in both these situations the Amara button (widget thing?) at the bottom of the video hosted by engagemedia.org is the last thing to load, and often does not appear at all, even while the video itself is able to load completely.
(using firefox 12 or chrome 21.0.1180.82, also older versions)
Occasionally the button does appear but says that subtitles are unavailable.
Its not as fun as it could be subtitling videos.
And its really not reliable that viewers will be able to read the subtitles and understand.

A workaround could be to subtitle the video directly from universalsubtitles.org
however links to videos on engagemedia return the message:

You must link to a video on a compatible site (like YouTube) or directly to a video file that works with HTML5 browsers. For example: http://mysite.com/myvideo.ogg or http://mysite.com/myipadvideo.m4v Contact us if there's a problem. 

Engagemedia is the most Amara friendly website I've come across,
I'm also guessing that all the videos hosted there are all played using HTML5.

Otherwise loving it friendlier interface than offline subtitlers I've come across and easy to teach people,
But people learning things like things to work, atleast the first time they use them.

Would appreciate your ideas...

Hi tr@verser11, firstly thank you very much for contributing to the EngageMedia subtitling team on Amara.

I'm sorry that I missed your post on the issues you've raised before. I'll be sure to reply properly to them by the end of the week.