Removing hardsubs with Avidemux?

[Haraiso]

I have this .avi movie file and I really want to remove the Chinese subtitles that were hardsubbed into it.
This is what I tried doing so far:

1. Open up Avidemux
2. Load movie
3. Go to Video tab --> Filters
4. Crop filter + Add Black Borders filter
5. I didn't see an "Okay/Submit" button or anything so I just click close.

In the filter previews, as well as when I go to View --> Preview Mode --> Output, everything seems perfect and the hardsubs appear to be completely hidden.
However, when I actually save the file and go to watch it...the subtitles are still there.

What am I doing wrong?

[Baldrick]

Strange...

I guess it took some time to reconvert the file? So you just didn't use video and audio COPY mode.

[jman98]

You hate subtitles so much that you're willing to re-encode and throw away part of the video just to get rid of them? Wow. You sound like a friend of mine except he wouldn't know how to even attempt that. Sorry, I have no idea what went wrong in your steps, I just wanted to comment on my amazement at how much you hate subtitles.

[Haraiso]

Baldrick: Umm, yes...It did take some time to save the "edited" version. And yes, I did leave the Video & Audio options as "Copy". Was I not supposed to do that?

jman98: On the contrary, I usually have no problems with subtitles at all, considering I watch a lot of foreign films. However, in this case, I would very much like to remove the Chinese hardsubs because (1) I don't even understand them and (2) The english softsubs that I have overlap with the hardsubs.

I understand that I can probably just change the position of the softsubs to go under the hardsubs or something like that, but I'd rather just edit out the subs completely since they're useless to me anyways.

[jagabo]

yes, I did leave the Video & Audio options as "Copy". Was I not supposed to do that?

You were not supposed to do that. Copy means copy -- the video isn't changed at at all, it's simply saved, as is, in the new file. You need to select a codec and reencode.

[Haraiso]

yes, I did leave the Video & Audio options as "Copy". Was I not supposed to do that?

You were not supposed to do that. Copy means copy -- the video isn't changed at at all, it's simply saved, as is, in the new file. You need to select a codec and reencode.

Ohhhh, alright.

Thank you so much!
I'll try resaving it now

[AlanHK]

I would very much like to remove the Chinese hardsubs because (1) I don't even understand them and (2) The english softsubs that I have overlap with the hardsubs.

What I do in that case is make English subs with a dark background (not transparent as is the default).

You don't lose any picture, you don't need to reencode.

(This is for DVD subs, using the SUP format bitmap subs, but I think it can be done for other formats.
See posts in https://forum.videohelp.com/topic374080.html for details.)