Locate particular words and timing within DVD structure's subtitles

[Finley]

I've been trying to come up with a quick and easy way to zip to particular words within a movie's subtitle, and to know at what point in the movie does that word appear.

The purpose is to mute profanity from movies, making them more family friendly.

I recently went through a movie using Nero Vision, and muted each word as I came to them. The only problem is I have to manually fast forward through the movie with my DVD player program, until I come to the word. I would take note as to what second the word is said, then refer back to Nero Vision, zip to that second, and mute it.

This method can be very time consuming and I was wondering if there is a way to search for particular words within a DVD's subtitles, or closed captioning, and to also see at what second is that word displayed. I could then still use Nero Vision to mute it, I just need a quicker way to find it.

I do have the ability to copy the DVD's structure to my harddrive. I'm hoping there's then a program that could read that to give me the subtitle info I'm looking for.

Also, my drive supports blu-ray as well, so if there's a method of subtitle finding that would work with a blu-ray's structure, that'd be awesome as well.

Thank you!

[Baldrick]

Google the movie name + srt subtitles and you might find a copy of the subtitle online.

Or convert/ocr the dvd image subtitles to text with for example subtitle edit.

Or just buy more family friendly movies...

[DB83]

Take a look at the Tools/Software section at left of where you read this.

Various subtitle programs to extract subs from dvds and blu-rays and then you can use a basic text editor to fast search through the created file.

[Finley]

I'll check them out. Thank you both for your suggestions.

[Cornucopia]

Problem with those (besides the obvious problem of OCR accuracy, and the possible legal complications with DMCA decrypting, etc) is that RARELY are subtitles timed to the exact second (like karaoke would be). At best, you've got a time mark that is within ~10 seconds, which means still a lot of manual searching in an audio editor. You've only narrowed the original seek time down from hours/minutes sections to 10-second sections.

If profanity is such a big deal, I would agree with Baldrick - stick to movies that don't cross that line. And if you find that your audience is ALWAYS preferring the movies that happen to have profanity in them, maybe it's a little hypocritical to presume the necessity of removing anything. Just my opinion. I know - to each his own. I preferred to filter my children's viewing away from predominantly violence & horror, and I'm glad I did. Sex, profanity, that's pretty much normal humanity. Again, just my opinion.
Only way this would affect you though is in the diminishing returns of your continuing uphill battle of preventing that exposure.

Scott

[smrpix]

And of course you still have to go through the whole movie to find instances of background characters swearing that weren't important enough to subtitle.

Let's hope that this intense and systematic exposure to profanity doesn't turn you into a degenerate yourself.

[jagabo]

Get a ClearPlay player for the kids if you're so concerned about content.

[Finley]

Hey, all opinions welcome. Some of my restrictions to profanity are also religious related as well. Not just to shield children from it. For me, the constant use of God's name as a curse word, or even the constant use of Christ is a bit of a conviction for me.

Take Back to the Future for instance. An absolute classic, and is even considered a family film, yet the use of religious language is all throughout the film.

If there's a simple way to remove that kind of content, I'd love to find it. Some of you are correct, hunting through subtitle files for every movie that has a word I don't like would be a never ending daunting task.

I have read up on ClearPlay, and is something I'll check out in the near future.

I did find something though, and if I need to go to a different topic, I will, but has anyone ever messed with XBMC's Mute Profanity addon? I actually doodled with it the other day, but couldn't get it to work with a DVD. Is that addon only compatible with something like TS, or MKV files, on your harddrive, coupled with subtitle files, or can the addon read the subs off of a commercial DVD some how?

I appreciate everyone's input, and any info you might have.

Thanks for puttin up with me.

[jagabo]

XBMC's Mute Profanity addon? I actually doodled with it the other day, but couldn't get it to work with a DVD.

I don't know anything about it. But from the description:

It works by comparing the movie's subtitle file against your filter file.

That probably means it only works with text based subs (eg, srt). The subs on DVDs are pictures.

[Finley]

Bummer. You would think there'd be a higher demand for an addon like that to be written to work off of commercially purchased DVDs before giving it the support of ripped movies with additional files required.

I appreciate the reply, Jagabo.

[Finley]

I figured I'd give one last post to this thread for anyone looking for a solution for this like I was. My home DVD player is my PC. So if you have a setup like mine, and would like to sensor your movies, I personally found the best method that works for me.

Zoom Player Max (It has to be the "Max" version) has a "Scene Cut Editor". You can actually tell the program when to mute profanity in a DVD. It works with any store bought DVD, and there's never any copying, ripping, or any questionable activity involved.

How I find the unwanted words is I go to a website called opensubtitles (just google it cause I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post external links), and download the subtitle file for the movie. Open the file with "Notepad", I hit Cntrl F, and the "Search for Words" box comes up. The subtitle file then shows you directly where the curse word can be found within the movie. You zip to that spot in Zoom Player Max, and edit it out. From then on, when you play the DVD with Zoom Player Max, it mutes where you told it to. (Be aware that sometimes you'll get a subtitle file that belongs to the overseas version of the film, and evidently those movies play a little faster than the United States' movies, so the subs could be a little off. Luckily you always have multiple subs to choose from on the site.)

It sounds like a very time consuming ordeal, but actually I can have a movie completely cleaned up within five to ten minutes. You can even tell Zoom Player Max when to skip entire scenes. Within two evenings, I had somewhere around 15 movies edited to my liking. Just make sure you register Zoom Player Max before you create too many edits, because after you pay and register the player, it messes up the edits prior to registering.

I wanted to go head and share what I found though, because I see people looking for solutions like this all over the internet, so I hope this last post wasn't too long or wasn't too far off the correct subject. I just wanted to let everyone know that I did find a solution.

Thanks!