Removing Foreign Voice over

[melper]

I have a movie that the original sound track can be heard in the background. Unfortunately it was recorded with a foreign voice which plays over the original sound. Since the foreign voice is only one voice and is not different voices I am assuming this was not done as part of the original production. When I check several sources like DVDshrink it shows as only one track. Is there a way to remove the foreign voice while keeping the original sound of the movie?

[drjtech]

What exactly is the DVD? It sounds almost as though you have a copy with only a commentary track, in a foreign language.

-drj

[melper]

The DVD is for the movie Prancer. I am not sure what language is recorded over the sound track, but I think you are correct it does sound like it could be a commentary track in a foreign language. However, the commentary does not totally cover the original sound of the movie. As a result I would like to see if there is a way to remove the commentary while still keeping the original sound of the movie.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[mats.hogberg]

If they are separate tracks, you can, (or even if it's just one track, but voiceover is on a separate channel) but if voice and background are on the same track in the same channel, there's not much to do, but get a better source.

/Mats

[melper]

Thanks for the reply Mats. What is the best way for me to determine if it was recorded on separate tracks or a separate channel?

[mats.hogberg]

Decode to wav - It's either stereo (2 channel) or 5.1 If it's stereo, listen to each channel separately. If it's just on ome of them, duplicate the voiceover free channel to the other, resulting in 2 chan mono. If it's a 5.1 track, you can decode to 6 wavs, remove the one with voiceover, downmix the rest to stereo. Much work - still simpler to get a fine source, maybe?

/Mats

[topaz18046]

I had the same problem. To make matters worse the foreign dub was on the only audio track. I was almost tempted to get a Russian phrase book then I hit on a solution. It may be too tedious for some but it did the job for me:

I imported the video into WavePad Sound Editor (No, I am not on a commission) and did a maximum zoom on the track.
Every time the Russian voice-over cropped up I stopped the track and highlighted it. (My first attempt at this was a disaster
as I chose to CUT the highlighted portion instead of my later method of SILENCING it).

Saving the result I now had two files. An .avi with a crap audio and a .wav file with no movie. Using Bigasoft Total Video Converter
I loaded the .avi and processed it without audio. This gave me what I wanted to run through Avidemux which joined the two
without any sync issues. A pretty convoluted method and I'm sure every man and his dog will say it would have been better done this
way and that way etc. I searched for this movie for some years and had practically given up on it. Then I noted in a google search
a site which was completely in Russian. The year stood out (1973) and as it had been included I checked it out. I copied what appeared to be a movie title and pasted into an online translator. There it was. It ended up on my hard drive in perfect resolution and in English. The foreign narrator being the only drawback...now fixed.

[jman98]

topaz18046 - Generally speaking, don't dig up old threads to post to them. I've seen worse examples as at least you had a sort of solution to offer, but we'd generally prefer that the old threads just be left alone.

Your solution is very poor. I can speak Russian reasonably well and I've got some Russian movies on DVD where this is done. Your method would make the movies I've seen completely unwatchable as it would blank out almost all the dialog and I would not recommend it. I've seen others do that kind on online translation of foreign subtitles and it has drawbacks. Every online translation program has defects when it comes to translating Russian although I guess if you are really desperate then being about 80% correct may be enough for you to enjoy the film and mostly understand what happens. If someone reading this must do that kind of translation, then I recommend using Google's translator. It's the best online translator I've seen for Russian although it is not perfect.

For the curious, while some older people do remember the days of voice overs fondly, this is much less common in the ex-USSR now than back in the days of the Soviet Union. That kind of on the fly voice over was done to save money. Now Hollywood almost always pays for a proper Russian dub to be done rather than a voice over.

[Hoser Rob]

You sure that's a dvd? Sounds like one of those scuzzy Russian warez videos to me.

[jman98]

You sure that's a dvd? Sounds like one of those scuzzy Russian warez videos to me.

I've got several examples of true, honest to God legitimate releases that do that. Some bought via the internet via companies that simply do not sell bootlegs and some bought while in Ukraine. "Oky Chornie" is one I particularly remember where it was extremely annoying (the original soundtrack is mostly Italian with some English but only available with a Russian voiceover on my DVD). I used to buy Russian DVDs from Ozon.ru but they no longer ship DVDs and CDs outside of Russia. Ozon is something like the Amazon of Russia.

[topaz18046]

topaz18046 - Generally speaking, don't dig up old threads to post to them. I've seen worse examples as at least you had a sort of solution to offer, but we'd generally prefer that the old threads just be left alone.

Your solution is very poor. I can speak Russian reasonably well and I've got some Russian movies on DVD where this is done. Your method would make the movies I've seen completely unwatchable as it would blank out almost all the dialog and I would not recommend it. I've seen others do that kind on online translation of foreign subtitles and it has drawbacks. Every online translation program has defects when it comes to translating Russian although I guess if you are really desperate then being about 80% correct may be enough for you to enjoy the film and mostly understand what happens. If someone reading this must do that kind of translation, then I recommend using Google's translator. It's the best online translator I've seen for Russian although it is not perfect.

For the curious, while some older people do remember the days of voice overs fondly, this is much less common in the ex-USSR now than back in the days of the Soviet Union. That kind of on the fly voice over was done to save money. Now Hollywood almost always pays for a proper Russian dub to be done rather than a voice over.

My solution is not poor. The Russian translator was not speaking over the actors, merely explaining to Russian viewers what was said.
Had it been Russian actors speaking the parts I would have nothing left after deleting the dialogue. I had searched for years for this movie...both online and in video stores. The Russian site had a perfect DVD rip. Not a CAM or T.V copy. I do use google translator for
foreign pages etc. I searched forum after forum looking for a solution. The best they could come up with was 'Keep looking' or 'It cannot be removed'. Well they were mistaken. Спасибо и удачи.