can I remove dubbing on an avi file?

[pattirose]

I have a avi file in it's original language (english) but they put a Russian audio on it also so I have both languages at the same time. Is there anyway to take the Russian off and leave the English? I doubt if this is possible but I thought I'd ask anyways, just in case.

[poisondeathray]

If they are separate tracks, you can remove one with avimux-gui

If they are separate channels, but 1 track, e.g L is English, R is Russian, you can delete one channel in an audio editor e.g. audacity, and duplicate it to the other channel make a "fake" stereo audio

[pattirose]

I think it's only one track because they both play at the same time. Any way to tell for sure? Or should I just try both programs?

[poisondeathray]

Yep go ahead, if there are multiple tracks, avimux-gui should list them. Mediainfo should also list multiple tracks

If there is only 1 video and 1 audio, then you probably have the 2nd example (L, R diff languages). You can also double check if this is the case by changing the audio balance in your audio configuration (e.g. move the slider all to Left or Right and see if it becomes all Eng, or all Rus.)

[Richard_G]

I doubt that it will be separate tracks, more likely the Russian is just applied to the existing audio track. I'd like a method of doing it in real time. My wife is from Belarus and whenever we visit I've noticed that their TV channels show a lot of English language films that have had Russian dubbed over the top of the English at a slightly higher level. Boy is it annoying! I'm used to hearing Russian langauage being spoken but it's like trying to listen to the TV when someone is shouting over the top of it!

The reason I say it is unlikely to be separate tracks is that my brother-in-law has a stereo TV and we tried moving the balance from one channel to the other to see if I could watch in English and both tracks had both languages. Mind you, this does assume that the Belteleradiocompany transmits in stereo......

[pattirose]

thank you so much Deathray you rock!!

[redwudz]

That method of overlaying the Russian translation over the English audio is quite common with some videos from Russia off the net. I'm not aware of any way to fix it if it's on both channels, except to turn off the audio and read the subs instead if they are even included.

[pattirose]

okay, this is what it told me:
one video stream and one audio stream,
this is for the audio stream
128Kbps,48.0 KHz, 2 channels, MPEG audio (MP3) version 1 Layer 3 joint stereo

I tried the left and right speaker thing and it was the same track.

I will try audacity now, as it wouldn't dload before but it seems to work now.

EDIT: audacity doesn't support the avi file.

[guns1inger]

You will have to demux the audio to either a wav or mp3 file to use it in Audacity. You can do this easily with virtualdubmod.

However you are wasting your time. You cannot remove the dubbing.

[tomlee59]

okay, this is what it told me:
one video stream and one audio stream,
this is for the audio stream
128Kbps,48.0 KHz, 2 channels, MPEG audio (MP3) version 1 Layer 3 joint stereo

I tried the left and right speaker thing and it was the same track.

I will try audacity now, as it wouldn't dload before but it seems to work now.

EDIT: audacity doesn't support the avi file.

You're pretty much SOL, I'm afraid. The audio wasn't recorded on separate channels, so unmixing them is not going to happen. Audacity can do many wonderful things, but unmixing is unlikely. Under very special circumstances, it is possible to effect a partial suppression, but movies rarely satisfy these special circumstances.

[pattirose]

I had a feeling it wouldn't be possible or if it was it would be too difficult for me to figure out how to do it but I thought I'd ask just in case there was an easy fix. I thank everyone for taking the time to post here - I appreciate it.

[thedeamon]

this is possible using VST plugin ( which enable us to supress audio freq from source audio files ) Extra_Boy.

"DJ Twist & Burn" is a program which can do it from a supported audio file with Extra_Boy plugin ( Vocal Removal 3 method ) with the following settings:

Preset - "Full Spectrum (HR)"
Spread - 5-10%

Stereolize! - Enabled
Spreadilate! - enabled

You can also use "Acoustica Mixcraft" with "Elevayta.Extra.Boy.Pro.v4.91d.VST-AMPLiFY" package.

Hope this helps!

[jman98]

I can't believe I missed this one when it first came around last summer. I usually comment on this type of question. It comes up just about every year.

Here's a Wikipedia article on what the original poster is talking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilov_translation
It basically has a voice actor (using that term "actor" VERY loosely here) or actors speaking Russian on top of the original dialogue. Under ideal circumstances the original dialogue will be very difficult to hear. Some of this type of overdub is better than others. In the worst examples the single voice actor seems to be translating the dialogue on the fly, so it trails behind what is said and it is often very monotone.

I have no idea how well thedeamon's suggestion will work, but it's better than nothing. This type of voice over is rarely if ever done in Russia on modern Hollywood films. They almost always have proper Russian only soundtracks created for them. This must be an older film. Note that this is NOT in any way like Asian VCDs with Mandarin on one side and Cantonese on the other. The soundtracks for this type of thing are mono and there is no separate channel for either Russian or the original language.

[Machera]

Tried thedeamon's approach but unfortunately tis a no go !! Any other suggestions now that I have mixcraft and the extra boy plugin ???

[F4RR3LL]

Open Your AVI file with VLC Media player , Go to Audio , Audio Track , and you'll find the aviliable languages . ^_^

[guns1inger]

Open Your AVI file with VLC Media player , Go to Audio , Audio Track , and you'll find the aviliable languages . ^_^

In this particular instance there is only one audio track. This isn't a case of a separate language track being played, but the second language being recorded over the top of the original audio, so a single combined track remains. VLC, or any other player capable of selecting different tracks (MPC will work just as well) will not help.

[jagabo]

You will have to demux the audio to either a wav or mp3 file to use it in Audacity.

If you add the ffmpeg plugin Audacity can extract the audio directly from the video file.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins#installffmpeg

[Gavino]

You will have to demux the audio to either a wav or mp3 file to use it in Audacity.

If you add the ffmpeg plugin Audacity can extract the audio directly from the video file.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins#installffmpeg

True, but as guns1inger went on to say:

However you are wasting your time. You cannot remove the dubbing.

[jagabo]

You will have to demux the audio to either a wav or mp3 file to use it in Audacity.

If you add the ffmpeg plugin Audacity can extract the audio directly from the video file.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins#installffmpeg

True, but as guns1inger went on to say:

However you are wasting your time. You cannot remove the dubbing.

I just wanted to clear up the part about demuxing the audio in case someone else reads this thread in the future.

[van3199]

using Gom player had this problem
right click on the picture
click on audio
select stream ie change from a to b or vice versa
bingo

[Tape]

Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster. Happened to have this dubbed into Russian flick, Duet for One, with the most annoying dubbing.

I used KMPlayer:
1. Open the file
2. Right-click on the picture
3. Select Audio
4. (a) For English only -- Choose Rare Filters > Voice Removal
(b) For Russian only -- Choose Rare Filters > Voice Emphasis

It worked for me and I am curious if it helps others. There appear to be a few obscure titles dubbed into Russian. I rather like the older titles which get played on TV in some places. Isn't it ironic using technology to return to a simpler time?

[jagabo]

Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster. Happened to have this dubbed into Russian flick, Duet for One, with the most annoying dubbing.

I used KMPlayer:
1. Open the file
2. Right-click on the picture
3. Select Audio
4. (a) For English only -- Choose Rare Filters > Voice Removal
(b) For Russian only -- Choose Rare Filters > Voice Emphasis

It worked for me and I am curious if it helps others. There appear to be a few obscure titles dubbed into Russian. I rather like the older titles which get played on TV in some places. Isn't it ironic using technology to return to a simpler time?

Interesting. I've never heard of this technique being used to mix two separate audio tracks. Two mono tracks are mixed into a stereo track. One track is repeated exactly on both the left and right channels. The other track appears on both the left and right channels but is inverted on one of them. You can then select which language you want to hear by downmixing to mono, either in phase, or out of phase.

Using E for English, R for Russian, + for in phase, - for out of phase, you have (+E +R) on the left, (+E -R) on the right. If you downmix that to mono by adding the two tracks together you get (+E +R) + (+E, -R) = (+E +R +E -R). The +R and -R cancel each other out leaving you with (+E +E) -- only English. If mix to mono by subtracting one channel from the other you get (+E +R) - (+E -R) = (+E +R -E +R). In this case the +E and -E cancel each other out leaving only (+R +R), Russian.

The advantage it has over recording English on the left and Russian on the right, is that the audio is in the center (ie, both left and right speakers) with either language you pick. With a left/right mix (I've seen this used on VCD) you use the balance control to listen to only one channel and it appears at either the left or right side.

Is this a common way of encoding dual language tracks on Russian TV? Other countries?

[Cornucopia]

It's a common enough method amongst audio engineers (constructive/destructive interference). However, for the boolean math to work correctly the phases have to be as listed, the timings have to be dead-on, the levels have to be balanced, and the waveforms have to have co-equal transforms done to both channels. IOW, if compression is done, it had better be done equally and (nearly) identically to both channels.
Otherwise, you will encounter incomplete cancellation, which could leave multiple dissimilar elements of the non-desired signal, plus the decorrelated compression artifacts & noise, in the desired output channel(s).
Which is why this method isn't used all the time: many of those mixes were probably done in the analog domain which would not have maintained perfect phase/time & level accuracy. Or, subsequent non-balanced compression has been done on the file/stream.

In the above situation, there are some "best practices" (L-ch only Lang1, R-ch only Lang2), but it isn't consistently & religiously followed. BTW, if I were TOLD to do the overdubbing onto both channels and weren't allowed to separate the channels like what is done in China, it probably would make more sense to pre-invert the phase of the English/Original language prior to adding an in-phase mono signal of the Russian/2nd/Overlay language. Doing this ensures that if the program is transmitted and/or received using mono-compatible-only equipment, the overlayed version would remain intact (to the detrimental loss of the original version), rather than the reverse.

Scott

[Newbieblu]

Signed up as I came across this thread when trying to help a friend fix a movie. Succeeded after using numerous types of media player. Not the best results but certainly listenable. Could be made better but you can't polish a turd.

Anyone remember the Karaoke function old Hi-Fis. Was quite successful on most modern and pop recordings. Didn't work so great for the Beatles.

Proof you can take a vocal out of a stereo mix. Something to do with the vocal being panned in the centre of the mix, or slightly off centre. Then when each channel was inverted the middle would disappear. Worked to some degree. I found that was successful. Just use the Karaoke button in VLC.

[KaFaraqGatri]

You know, technical forums will be MUCH better when people can get an ounce of self-control and get real and answer the question realistically instead of always having to demonstrate how brilliant they are. It doesn't.

To whit: The poster most likely has a video overdubbed in Russian when Western movies started flooding into Russia in the 1980's. I have seen hundreds and NOT ONE has had the voices in different channels or on different tracks. The original and the damnable overdubbing is combined on a single track, IN BOTH CHANNELS. You cannot do a thing about that directly. Once again we have a thread dominated by "Well, if xyz is true- which we know it isn't- let me drool my wisdumb on you about what you could do! Hey, geniuses. Most people posting this question know about different tracks and different channels. Only they have a life and don't have to find forums where they can twist the question...to show they know the answer!

There is one solution. Wannabbee bright people will want to listen up, because this is what actually listening to the question, accepting reality, and coming up with something USEFUL actually looks like.

Get your destroyed Russia POS movie that you want. Use something like ffmpeg or whatever to strip out only the video track. "ffmpeg -i [filename] -vcodec copy -an [outfilename]. Then go to someplace like youtube, and see if there's a full length version. Many times there will be, but it will be horribly low res. Download that, and reverse the command, so you get only the sound. ffmpeg -i [filename] -vn -acodec copy [outfilename] Make sure the file extension makes sense to ffmpeg for the format of the track. Then combine the single audio and video tracks. You may have to use something like audacity to stretch or compress it to fit the video, but that is usually not terribly hard.

You can google for a subtitles file, so the language of the audio isn't really important; original is best and has the best chance of fitting the video unedited. And if you absolutely can't find what you need, create or download a soundtrack from it. Not one that fits the action, just a random collection of the theme music. Add a subtitles file, combine it with the video, and you've a silent movie!

[sambat]

It's "To wit" and the thread is dead.

[jagabo]

Or is it "twat"?

[bendixG15]

I think it's "twit"

[manono]

Or is it "twat"?

I think it's "twit"

My chuckles for the day.

[Hoser Rob]

That was the dumbest hijack of an old thread I've seen in ages. Good work ...