Seeking help on "bleeping-out" bad words

[dough]

How would a person go about editing a DVD movie to remove the gratuitous foul language? I have some movies that would be entertaining for my family but the language is just too “grown-up” for my kids.

I thought it would be fairly simple - rip DVD using DVD Decrypter or RipIt4Me, bleep out the bad words using Vegas Movie Studio, burn to new disk using DVD Architect Studio. However, I can’t even get past the 1st step. So far I’ve tried to rip the DVD with DVD Decrypter and RipIt4Me then convert the VOBs to MPGs with VOB2MPG. I haven’t even gotten to point of attempting to edit the audio because the resulting .mpg has some serious artifact issues – the screen sometimes gets snowy/pixilated and some scenes even get skipped entirely.

Before I spend anymore time on this, I wanted to ask the experts here if I’m approaching this in the manner or am I completely off base? Is there and easier way? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Midzuki]

dough wrote:

... but the language is just too “grown-up” for my kids.

That's just your groundless opinion, of course.

\\\\\\\

[usually_quiet]

I am not an expert, but you might try DVDFab HD Decrypter. It is a free program and is updated regularly. There is a link for it on the home page of this website under "Latest Video Tools" I can't comment on the rest of your plan, since I haven't tried those tools.

[Dubber]

Do you really think your family members never heard those words out loud? If your kids are not to hear the words, the movie may be too much for them as well.

[gll99]

This is a fairly common topic that surfaces from time to time but your video quality issue makes the topic a bit different from some of the others.

There's no easy way to bleep out unwanted audio as many have asked and found out before. It's a timeline word by word overdub. In addition you often have to consider blurring the mouth because the words are so obvious.

As far as the video having artifacts, it should be a copy of the original. Decrypters only extract the video and don't re-encode so it could be a playback issue only caused by the mpeg2 decoder (codec) that is being used on your system or you have a poor or damaged original and allowed the decrypter to skip the unreadable portions. As long as you didn't shrink it, under normal conditions the DVD and extracted mpeg should have the same quality since the mpeg is only pulled out of its vob container.

[guns1inger]

Your approach is right, although the artifacts are a concern.

As pointed out, try DVDFab HD Decrypter to see if you have more success. You then need to demux the audio from the video, load it into an audio editor like audacity or Sound Forge, and reduce the volume of the section you want to remove. You must not cut the words, or you will alter the length of the audio and cause all sorts of sync issues.

As for the blurring the mouth - that will add days to what is already a slow task. Is it worth it - depends how paranoid you are. To see just how obvious it can be, watch Galaxy Quest. Toward the very end, Sigourney Weaver is facing the camera and makes a remark that has very obviously been toned down a lot from what was delivered on set.

Personally, I don't see the point. If it has language that isn't suitable for kids, it generally has themes and other issues that should be of equal concern. It doesn't hurt them to wait. I would love to show my 8 and 10 year old the Blues Brothers in it's entirety, but there is enough language in it to make it unsuitable. They can wait and see it in a couple of years. It's simply not worth the effort to edit it AFAIAC.

[jman98]

dough - It might have been a good idea to tell us what your original DVD is. You should be aware that Sony DVDs are often protected with ARCCOS or similar anti-rip technologies and they require special programs to rip. DVD Decrypter is completely unable to rip some Sony DVDs. It hasn't been updated in years because of legal threats. RipIt4Me similarly has been shut down by legal threats. It is only a matter of time before Sony comes up with a new type of copy protection that it won't understand. Such protection may be out now for all I know. DVDFab HD Decrypter is your best choice to rip such discs.

I have about 6 years experience working with video and I can tell you that I would NEVER attempt to do what you want to do. Just not worth the time and effort. To be blunt, if you can't even get your rips to work correctly, you're not going to be able to do this successfully. Stop wasting your time and just don't show any movies to your kids that you think require this kind of work.

[tinker]

There is one possibility.
Once you get your file ripped to your computer, get Mpeg Video Wizard DVD. In there you can edit sound by lowering volume at the points you want. Like Gins1inger say you cannot cut words out because you will loose sync, and most sound editors will not accept AC3 5.1 audio. Even Sound Forge cannot do it, it will only export 5.1 made form multichannel audio, not import.

[t0nee1]

jman98 wrote" Stop wasting your time and just don't show any movies to your kids that you think require this kind of work.

[dough]

dough - It might have been a good idea to tell us what your original DVD is. You should be aware that Sony DVDs are often protected with ARCCOS or similar anti-rip technologies and they require special programs to rip. DVD Decrypter is completely unable to rip some Sony DVDs. It hasn't been updated in years because of legal threats. RipIt4Me similarly has been shut down by legal threats. It is only a matter of time before Sony comes up with a new type of copy protection that it won't understand. Such protection may be out now for all I know. DVDFab HD Decrypter is your best choice to rip such discs.

I have about 6 years experience working with video and I can tell you that I would NEVER attempt to do what you want to do. Just not worth the time and effort. To be blunt, if you can't even get your rips to work correctly, you're not going to be able to do this successfully. Stop wasting your time and just don't show any movies to your kids that you think require this kind of work.

While I can appreciate the concerns for how much time this will take and what my wife and I decide is appropriate for our kids, at this point I'm just playing with this to see if I can do it - sort of a personal challenge if you will. The movie I'm using just happens be one that was within arms reach when I started - it's Terminator 2. One that I was thinking of "editing for television" (the kids) is Short Circuit but I haven't tried it yet. I realize this would be very time consuming and probably not worth doing often. However, I thought it would be a good learning experience for me as well as something I could have a little fun with - like putting my own voice and some silly words in place of the original dialog. That could be entertaining for other video projects as well, not necessarily full length movies.

Regarding the video artifacts, it appears that the problem is with VOB2MPG. The VOBs seem to play just fine. The MPGs don't. I imported the MPGs into Vegas to have a closer look and found something weird. There's a scene near the middle of the movie (possibly at the layer change?) that has been chopped up and some frames are out of sequence. Could that be due to DVD Decrypter or RipIt4Me? Or maybe VOB2MPG?

[handyguy]

They make a small box you can use to take out dirty words in closed captions. You could use that & make the kids read.

[Soopafresh]

Yet the violence is OK?

[rijir2001]

There are companies that have already done what you want done. Just buy 'em from them. Rather than spend the countless hours completing this tast just spend some quality time with the kids away from the TV.

No movie is worth the time to do this.

[tinker]

If you try Mpeg Video Wizard you do not need to convert VOB, because you can import them to Wizard and export as Mpeg2 file after you done with editing.
And, yes, there is an additional track you can use for your own comments or any audio you create to compliment your project.
I do not think either Decrypter or RipIt is a problem.

I do believe, that challenge is the way to go, even if I agree with others, that dirty word is not as harmful as violence.

[jagabo]

http://www.clearplay.com/

Lets you skip Sex, Violence & Profanity on Regular DVDs

[gll99]

@dough
When my children were young I dubbed some classic children's movies, tape to tape and removed scenes I felt might not be suitable for them.

As parents we call the shots and I didn't want them to miss out on the movies but at the same time made a personal judgement on the content based on their age. I laughed later when they grew a bit older and and saw the uncut version and said to us "I never saw this in the movie before"

Mine were simple cuts using the recorder's pause button and using the normal scene changes to make it seamless, digital editing is more complex but it's a very good way to practise some skills and learn new software.

Try searching the site for previous questions on the same topic.

btw) If it is a recent disc then follow jman98 's advice. You need a good rip before you can even consider the other suggestions for editing the movie. In addition to what I said earlier, the fact you have skips and artifacts probably means a bad rip.

[dnix71]

Google for TVGuardian. It works with any subtitled dvd or tv by reading the words and muting the playback volume when necessary.

[dough]

Google for TVGuardian. It works with any subtitled dvd or tv by reading the words and muting the playback volume when necessary.

This must be what handyguy was referring to. I had never heard of such a thing (other than the V-chip). Any experience with it? I'm curious how well it works.

[dough]

Thanks to all who suggested DVDFab Decrypter. That's a nice app. It worked well for me and now I've got a good quality .mpg to work with.

[lacywest]

Rip to a Divx AVI movie video file ... and make sure the audio is constant bitrate.

Then use something like Cool Edit Pro 1.2 to lower the volume where the cussing is.

or use Cool Edit Pro 2.1 ... it has a feature to extract the audio from a video file and then reduce the audio where the swear words are .... Virtual Dub can be used to glue everything back together.

[dadrab]

Rip to a Divx AVI movie video file ... and make sure the audio is constant bitrate.

Then use something like Cool Edit Pro 1.2 to lower the volume where the cussing is.

or use Cool Edit Pro 2.1 ... it has a feature to extract the audio from a video file and then reduce the audio where the swear words are .... Virtual Dub can be used to glue everything back together.

There is no more Cool Edit. Adobe bought Syntrillium Software and turned the Cool Edit applications into Adobe Audition. The functionality is basically the same, though. It would be nice software to complete this kind of task with - albeit time consuming and tedious.

Burn the kids some Jonny Quest and let them watch to their hearts content. 8)