Removing Subtitles from VCDs and VCD-originated MPEG and WMV files....

[dadada_999]

Hello, i have some old VCDs with "burnt-in" Chinese subtitles. How would i go abouts removing them? Currently, i know how to rip VCDs into MPEG, and since i use Windows Movie Maker, i also end up with WMV files. In other words i could either remove the subtitles from VCD MPEG file which would mean handling a much larger file, or i could remove the subtitles from the exported WMV clip, assuming this is even possible. I've already tried to use virtualdub with MSU subtitles remover, but, mainly because there wasn't a step-by-step tutorial on how to use filters, i didn't get very far. For example, i tried to save the avi file with the added filter on default settings (just as a tryout), but the resulting file turned out to be around 22gb, so i aborted the process. Note that this was performed on the large MPEG file, since virtualdub does not recognise wmv files. It would be much better if i could also remove subtitles on the much smaller wmv clips exported from windows movie maker. Any helpful advice would be very much appreciated. thx

Dave

[redwudz]

VirtualDub is one of the few programs that has a subtitle/logo remover filter available. But if those are burned into the video, you may not have much luck removing them anyway. You can obscure them, but that may look worse.

For VirtualDub, what output codec did you choose? If none, it will end up being a huge file. (Uncompressed RGB)

And WMM can also output DV-AVI, which might be a better choice, but it's still about 13GB an hour. VD can also open and save in DV-AVI format with a codec like the Panasonic DV Codec. Though the Cedocida DV Codec may be a better choice if it works for VD. I normally use VirtualDub Mod, but the latest VD may work fine.

You may be able to blank out the foreign subs and put the new subs over the blanked area. Not the greatest, but it may allow the new subs to be read easily.

Were you using this VD guide?: http://www.compression.ru/video/subtitles_removal/index_en.html