Subtitle support

It is a difficult problem, given mixtures of transparency and solid, some scenes too complex to be reliably in-painted, but I wonder if neural processing is likely to give better results than other solutions.

Currently there are no subtitle/logo/timestamp removers that work with recent versions of FFMPEG (they all seem to broken/obsolete), and other solutions on offer are cloud-based. So, there is a gap there.

Iā€™m using Topaz to upgrade old DVDs Iā€™ve collected. The program does a great job on the videoā€¦no question. But to finish the job, I have to do at least one more pass to mux them back in with the upgraded video file. Please put in a pass through option for subs in your program.

A development suggestion: The possibility of placing subtitles on the video using fonts.
Currently, one problem is that if I place a subtitle on the original video, the AI will also scale and improve the subtitle. This leads to distortion of the subtitles. If I donā€™t want this, I donā€™t put the subtitle on the original video, but I have to put the finished, exported video in an editor and put the subtitle on there. It would be nice if I could enter subtitles in Topaz, which Topaz would add to the already enhanced video. So I miss the option to subtitle the exported videos (and previews off course).
If you have other development suggestions, write them here, letā€™s collect them!

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Add a function in the future; generate automatic subtitles, similar to Youtube.
This would certainly be possible with AI techniques in the future and a big extra plus for TopazLabs.

Wolfgang

Yes! Please.

My experience is that Topaz Video AI gives you the improved video and copies the audio track only to the output.
So I just want to mention here one solution. All my video files are either .mkv or .mp4. The following works for either.
Thereā€™s a easy way to replace the video track on the original input file with the video track produced by Topaz thus retaining all the original subs and other tracks in the original file using MKVToolNix mkvmerge.
You can get this free (MKVToolNix download latest version)
You can do this using the GUI but the following CLI command example is one I used to replace the original SD movie with the Topaz upscaled HD Abyss video while retaining all the other original tracks like subtitle and chapters:
mkvmerge.exe -o ā€œC:\merged_videos\The Abyss Extended (1989).mkvā€ -D ā€œD:\The Abyss (1989)\The Abyss Extended (1989) 480p.mkvā€ -A -S -T -M -B --no-chapters --default-track-flag 0:1 ā€œD:\The Abyss (1989)\The Abyss Extended (1989) 480p_amq13.mkvā€
What this does is merge only the video track from the Topaz enhanced file with all the other tracks except the video track of the original file producing a new output file. Neither the original or Topaz file are modified.
I have a Python script to walk a directory in order to do a TV season of files for example after I process them all with Topaz.
Hope this info is useful.
Note: There were a couple errors in the command line flags in my original post. Those have been corrected with this last edit as some wording to better describe the process.

Thanks for the detailed response. I have found my own method which is basically the reverse of your approach. Using MKVcleaver, I copy the subs first and save to a separate file. Then using Topaz, I upgrade the video and remux the subfile back into the video file using MKV Toolnix. It would save a couple steps if Topaz would just pass-through the subfiles.

ā€œOne of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.ā€ C.S. Lewis

| billc.lange
August 17 |

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My experience is that Topaz Video AI gives you the improved video and copies the audio track only to the output.
So I just want to mention here one solution. All my video files are either .mkv or .mp4. The following works for either.
Thereā€™s a easy way to replace the video track on the original input file with the video track produced by Topaz thus retaining all the original subs and other tracks in the original file using MKVToolNix mkvmerge.
You can get this free (MKVToolNix download latest version)
You can do this using the GUI but the following CLI command example is one I used to replace the original SD movie with the Topaz upscaled HD Abyss video while retaining all the other original tracks like subtitle and chapters:
mkvmerge.exe -o ā€œC:\merged_videos\The Abyss Extended (1989).mkvā€ -D ā€œD:\The Abyss (1989)\The Abyss Extended (1989) 480p.mkvā€ -A -S -T -M -B --no-chapters --default-track-flag 0:1 ā€œD:\The Abyss (1989)\The Abyss Extended (1989) 480p_amq13.mkvā€
What this does is merge only the video track from the Topaz enhanced file with all the other tracks except the video track of the original file producing a new output file. Neither the original or Topaz file are modified.
I have a Python script to walk a directory in order to do a TV season of files for example after I process them all with Topaz.
Hope this info is useful.
Note: There were a couple errors in the command line flags in my original post. Those have been corrected with this last edit as some wording to better describe the process.

Itā€™s good weā€™re getting the chance to discuss some of the various options out there currently.
I think the best Topaz solution would be to only replace what it is changing i.e. the video and keep all the rest of the tracks intact.
Since you know the MKVToolnix, when I look at the tracks from DVD and BD especially there are other tracks that I often want to preserve in addition to subtitles, specifically chapters, and alternate languages such as Anime files with Japanese and English as well as multiple subtitles. The method Iā€™m using does preserve all these but it would be better if Topaz did this by default.
Cheers!

Hello~

I would like to recommend a feature addition: subtitle passthru.

Currently, it seems that when a video is exported, the new product does not contain any subtitles.
This makes sense, and perhaps I am incorrect in thinking that this would be a well recieved and used feature, but if I am hoping for this feature, then likely some others are too.

I use FFMPEG (FileFlows) to take my videos through a flow which strips them of undesired audio streams and subtitles, and keeps only the desired ones, then finally reencoding and producing a new video with only the desired video, audio, and subtitles, perhaps it might be possible for Video AI to also include at least a subtitle passthru, so as not to strip them of the subtitles present in the original video, or at least to copy the original subtitles and to add them again to the produced video?

Thank you for the consideration.

Not just subtitles, all tracks including audio, alternate audio, subtitle, alternate subtitle, chapters, etc should be passed through with only the video track being replaced by Topaz.

If you need a workaround, there is another subtitle topic in the forum where I describe how to do this for mp4 and mkv files with MKVToolNix. However you need a separate post process step to merge the original file tracks with the video track from the enhanced Topaz video file.
The MKVToolNix solution mentioned above is in the thread ā€œSubtitle supportā€ around the middle/bottom of the thread.

2 Likes

Is it possible to hope that this function will come soon? :sweat_smile: