Blurring and overlapping hard subtitles

[jairovital]

Hi guys

Now, I'm trying to remove hard subtitles.

My idea is to apply some blur over the hard subs only when there is a soft sub to overlap it. For that, I'll use the SRT file and get the times from it. How? Using Delphi I could write a small program to convert time to frame number.

There is a good plugin for Vdub called RegionRemove. It's fine, but just for short movies. Using it, I can set the list of frames and the plugin act only in that list. The problem is that the limit of the list. I tryed to put in the listbox all the frames I need to cover, but it accepted less than 100 lines...



How to solve it?

I think there is another way, writing a Avisynth script to make the same, or even look like RegionRemove.
The code:

Mpeg2Source("Untitled.d2v")

v = Trim(1000,1300) ++\
Trim(4600,4700)++\
Trim(4800,4900)++\
Trim(5000,5100)++\
Trim(6000,6100)++\
Trim(7000,7100)++\
Trim(8000,8100)++\
Trim(9400,9500)

blur=Crop(v,100,380,-100,80).BilinearResize(30,6).BilinearResize(520,80)
Overlay(v,blur,100,380)

Where the list of frames I can get from my small program. I'm improving the program to write also the parts where there are no subs to overlap. The script above is just a draft and it will also be improved later. This thread is to ask some other way to blur the hard sub with less harm to the original video.

Samples from the movie Electra, greek filme, 1962.


original


avisynth


RegionRemove


Rendered

As you see, RegionRemove had made a better job than my crop-resize script. Is there another way to write the script to get better results? Also to treat the borders. Borders at my script are too hard and visible...

I did not test yet, but Avisinth script can accept around 2000 lines of trim, resize and crop functions? It would degrade the processing?

Another question is if you guys know a way to override the limit of the listbox of the RegionRemove plugin.

[davexnet]

See if this helps:
http://zuggy.wz.cz/guides/video.htm

[jairovital]

Thank you davexnet, but that tutorial I've already read a dozen times. SubRip is very hard to adjust the perfect settings to grab hard subs.

But the point here isn't to grab/ripping, but to blur or remove hard subs.

[davexnet]

The reason I posted it is becaue I *thought* (although I've never tried it) that procedure could be used to mask the subs
and remove them. Not so?
There may be a Virtualdub filter - let me take a look.

[jairovital]

I know three filters in Vdub to blur region: RegionRemove, DeLogo and Logoaway. None of them, as far as I know, handle long list of frames, ON and OFF, as I'm needing.

[davexnet]

It's a compromise, none of the tools produce results that you could call good.
I tried the logo filter in FFDshow (ffvdub.vdf) .


The MSU subtitle remover has on and off, based on a first pass "detection" phase, in which it keeps
track of the frames involved. I had no luck with it - have you tried it ?

[jairovital]

MSU is another plugin to grab (rip) the subtitles and output it to Vobsub format.
The result you got with ffvdub is interesting. How did you got that? I'd like to compare with the script I'm testing.

[davexnet]

No - I'm talking about this MSU tool:
http://www.compression.ru/video/subtitles_removal/index_en.html

Here's the settings I used in FFVdub :

[jairovital]

davexnet, I say thank you!

I've already knew about MSU SubtitleRemover. Some time ago I run tests with it and I couldn't reach good results and I gave up.

Now, using a black and white movie, maybe it is easier to the plugin detect the subtitles, and because you recall it for me, I got the results I'm posting below. See by yourself and tell me something:

http://www.4shared.com/video/u-ILAGVa/msu2_.html
http://www.4shared.com/video/nVLXgHIl/msu3_.html

msu2 -> subs removed
msu3 -> original subs

I could notice that the plugin has some kind of problem when you change the parameters many times. It cannot detect subtitles anymore. I have to open again the video or even quit Vdub and try once more.

The ffvdub you post, I haven't knew it, but the logoaway it uses is the same of logoaway.vdf standalone plugin I use. And the results are the same.

Man, thank you for guiding me back to the right tool: MSU SubtitleRemover