Guide: Remove text for hearing impaired

[CoNS]

This is the discussion thread for my new guide How to remove text for the hearing impaired and lyrics in DVD subtitles, which can be found here (http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/Guides/HearingImpaired/guide.htm).

The guide is based on DVDSubEdit (http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/) by jeanl.

Any questions, comments, bug reports and suggestions for improvements regarding the guide is welcome. :)

[Mtz]

Nice job. Thanks!
Some other things that I don't like in some original DVD and I like to erase: Uh, huh, whoa, ha-ha, ahem, etc and sometimes hey and oh. Usually I use the search function for them. but some "database" in DVDSubEdit (stored in a ini file?) can be nice.
Also sometimes the "..." at the end of some subpicture followed at the start of the next subpicture when the difference before the last "..." and the next is under one second. But this is offtopic is not a characteristic for hearing impaired subtitles.

enjoy,
Mtz

[jeanl]

Thanks for the guide CoNS!
:)
jeanl

[ukendt]

Great guide, should be sticky...done :)

[CoNS]

The guide has been updated to take advantage of new features in DVDSubEdit v1.3, which has been released today by jeanl. :)

Links are in the first post...

[handyguy2]

Well, first ' text for hearing impaired ' means closed captions. Second, ' hearing impaired' is an offensive phrase these days. Therefore, just change it from ' text for hearing impaired ' to 'closed captions'.

Proper phrasing if you want to know is, 'Deaf & hard of Hearing'. You often see this on DVDs these days, usually abbr. as DHOH.

Thanks for changing it if you get around to it.

[CoNS]

handyguy2, we already had this discussion at the VideoHelp Forum. This was my answer to you, and it still is:

English is not my native language so please forgive any use of outdated terms etc. And of course I'm not trying to insult anyone. However, in this particular case, I'm not sure there's a problem. I've often seen the term "subtitles for the hearing impaired" used in connection with DVD subtitles. If you google for "hearing impaired" you'll see that this term is still actively used, also by the hearing impaired community, it seems. Furthermore, when looking up "hearing impairment" at WikiPedia, one gets the same impression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_impairment

About the term "closed captions", I'd rather not use it in connection with my guide. When it comes to DVD subtitles, closed captions are something completely different than "normal" subtitles. Bear in mind that on a video DVD there can be 3 different kinds of subtitles:

1. "Hardcoded" subtitles, i.e. subtitles that are physically an integrated part of the video.
2. "Normal" DVD subtitles, i.e. bitmap subtitles which are located in up to 32 separate streams. Such subtitles can be set to "forced" or not.
3. Closed Captions, i.e. a special kind of text subtitles located inside the VOB files. They can be displayed on the screen by some software and standalone players with special support for closed captions. Many region 1 DVDs contain closed captions.

The scope of my guide is to remove "normal" DVD subtitles (containing lyrics, or text for the hearing impaired). DVDSubEdit (http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=DVDSubEdit) can only detect the (possible) presence of closed captions, and (so far?!) it cannot edit or extract closed captions in any way. Same with SubRip (http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Subrip). If you want to read more technical info about closed captions on DVDs, check out McPoodle's site: http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML.

[CoNS]

Speaking of "Hard of Hareing"...!!

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7536/hardofhareing0pa.jpg

[CoNS]

ukendt, you could make this thread unsticky, as you've created the new sticky thread for all DVDSubEdit guides?

BTW, guys, what's your experience with removing hearing impaired text using DVDSubEdit? I use this feature a lot, maybe in average 1-2 times a week, and IMO it works very well, as the hearing impaired text can always be removed, one way or the other.

With some subtitles, however, I have to do a lot of manual work. There're three types of subtitles, which I often come across where this is the case:

1. When one or more of the characters "(", ")", "[" or "]" are not recognized. This is caused by misinterpretation in the OCR code, which I believe is very difficult and time consuming for jeanl to fix.

2. When the colon in the "MAN: Hiya, George" kind of text is placed after two or more words, as in "LADY IN RED: Hello handsome". This could be solved by adding a setting in the preferences menu to let the user specify how many words before the colon are accepted, default 1.

3. I quite often come across subtitles that are not centered horizontally. When the "MAN: Hello George" kind of hearing impaired text is removed from such subtitles, there's always left too much space in front of the real text "Hello George". This looks rather confusing when there are two or more lines of subtitles below eachother in a subpic. It would probably be quite easy for jeanl to adjust the number of pixels left before the first letter pixels, when removing "MAN: Hello George" kind of hearing impaired text. The problem is probably also present when the subtitles are centered horizontally, but you just don't notice it there, due to the centering.

jeanl, are you still busy planning the expansion of your house? It would be great if you could find the time to correct some of the above (especially the last one!), to improve DVDSubEdit to become even better. :)

[jeanl]

Hi CoNS! It's been a while! Unfortunately, yes, I'm still up to the gills into the actual expansion! I haven't had much time to devote to programming outside of work, and I don't think I will in the immediate future (the list of things I have to do for the house is impressive, fortunately all this does not have to be done overnight!)...
But eventually I will, and it will be good if you have a list of problems and suggestion for when I "come back"! Most likely not before 2007 though :(
Jeanl