subtitle removal (for a newbie)

[budgirl357]

Okay, here's the situation.

I downloaded a movie (AVI clip) and coverted it to vcd mpeg. It is a widescreen, and chinese subtitles appear in the black area at the bottom of the screen. I would like to remove the subtitles if it is possible. I have done a search on this subject and I read a post stating that it can't be done, but I read other posts that implied that it can be done.

Again, I am not trying to remove subs that appear on the actual picture.
The ones I am trying to remove are bright yellow and very large chinese characters, and very frustrating when trying to watch the movie, especially because there are already original subs on the actual picture, which wouldn't be so bad if that was all!

I am new to this, but I am aware that there are various features in virtual dub that can be used to deal with subtitles. If anyone can help me in determining a method which will get this job done, I would really appreciate it! thanks in advance!

Peace,
budgirl357

[agzz]

if you dont mind reencoding it, i think you can use crop with virtualdub. then agian, im not sure, try with a litle clip first if you decide to try it.

[budgirl357]

Yeah, I talked to someone on vcdchat that suggested that I do that as well. Only thing is when I tried to do it, I couldn't quite get it. Remember I am a newbie. If you could give me some tips and instructions on how to do it that would be great. I will continue to play around with vdub, and I will be waiting for your reply. I intend to look at the "tmpge explained" guide here on this site.

Peace,
budgirl357

[adam]

Hi budgirl357, I believe I was the one you talked to earlier.

There are two types of subtitles, hard encoded and soft encoded. Soft encoded subtitles are overlayed on the picture and hard encoded subs are physically encoded into the picture. They are basically just a part of the movie. The fact that the subs are still present after simply encoding from avi to mpg mean that your subs are hard encoded. There is no way to remove hard encoded subs. All you can do is remove that part of the picture and try and fill in the gap (there are plugins for this but they will not work well with subtitles, only small items such as logos), or in your case cover it up since the subs are below the picture. Yes virtualdub can do this but I really think for your purposes TMPGenc would be better.

All you have to is use the clip frame filter in the advanced tab. Double click on it and check the bottom mask. In the bottom box keep hitting the up arrow until the black mask covers your subs. Now just encode your file using the same settings as your source. Its really quite simple. I realize these subs may be annoying but don't forget that additonal transcoding of your file will result in quality loss. Is the quality loss worth not having subs? If so then go for it.

Or you can do what I always do when I have subs below the picture. Just stick a piece of electrical tape on your tv screen where the subs are. From 4 ft away you can't see the tape at all.