Chinese movies in VCD

[techie]

I recently discovered the VCD's format being used for the Chinese TV programs from China and other popular programs. What a terrific way to immerse myself into the Chinese language.

Even though I am still a beginner in many ways, although I can read intermediate and some advance with the use of translation machine programs and online dictionaries, listening to these movies and programs accustomes my ear to the Chinese sound and pronunciation.

Question: Is there any way to extract from these VCD's the actual Mandarin subtitle offered in these movies?

Let me explain further. Some of the VCD I received are spoken in Mandarin and written in Simplified or Traditional Chinese in the subtitles. However the written aspect is a type of "graphic" format which if I were to grab, I cannot edit as text.

I would like to extract or obtain these written portions of the sutitle so that I may look words up in dictionaries or later use these transcripts to annote them and learn new words I have listened to.

Any ideas, comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[roddy]

I'll move this over to another section, as it's really a computing issue. However, I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible. On a VCD the subtitles are encoded as part of the picture, not a parallel stream of data you can turn on or off like on DVDs.

You MAY be able to feed individual screen grabs into an optical character reader - but that would probably be too timeconsuming.

If they're very popular movies, could you try and find the scripts on the internet? Let us know what it is you're watching, maybe someone has a spare weekend to type it all in . . .

Roddy

PS I would imagine if you had a DVD and DVD editing software you could do this - anyone know for sure?

[Guest Anonymous]

Yes, you can extract the subtitles from DVDs but not VCDs since it's actually a saparate file.

Like roddy said, with VCDs, you'd either have to find a copy of the script online or take screenshots of each subtitle text on a computer which would be extremely time consuming.

I don't know where you acquired these VCDs but if you really want, DVDs in China aren't that much more expensive than VCDs now. DVDs in China aren't ridiculously overpriced like in the U.S. and I'm not talking about the pirated versions.

[techie]

They were advertising them in ebay.

These are the ones I got. (Television Shows, Action Adventure)

月落长江 [24集]

故事起伏跌宕、扣人心弦而又凄婉动人。她如同一杯人生的苦酒，饱蘸着血与火、血与泪、悲哀与痛苦；她如同一场人类与野兽的搏斗、和灵魂的撕杀；她又如同一曲生命的抗争和呐喊……

这是一部关于人性、真爱、错爱、缘份、命运悲欢离合的电视剧。以二十世纪四十年代末到八十年代初期为历史背景，讲述长江沿岸临江发电厂两代人的命运沉浮、悲欢离合、感情纠葛及矛盾冲突。描写了上一辈人及下一代儿女们的爱情故事，塑造了众多栩栩如生的人物形象，如有良知、敢爱敢恨的工人子弟匡逸夫，出卖妻子、出卖灵魂，坚持“左比右好”的“风派”人物庄楚，惨遭蹂躏的资本家女儿席小容，相貌丑陋、心地善良的农民来福，大串连后接受“再教育”的知识青年匡美珠等等。故事起伏跌宕、扣人心弦而又凄婉动人。

I algo obtained the following:

* Thatched Memeories, Manderin, Chinese/Eng sub

* The tale of the sacred mountain, manderin, eng/chinese sub

*Warrior Lanling, Manderin, Chinese sub

*Five girls and a rope, manderin, chi/eng sub

*Beijing Bastards, Manderin, chinese sub

*The queen of tibet, manderin, chinese/eng sub

*Suzhou, manderin, chinese/eng sub

*jiang zhu ying, manderin, chinese sub

Some of them are DVD but most are VCD.

In the DVD how do you go about extracting the "subtitles" to put them on a different file?

Also, YES, I would be interested in DVD from China. I am a very serious student of Chinese trying to look and absorb everything I can.

Thanks for your inputs and comments.

[techie]

I would be happy with DVD and subtitles in "simplified chinese" which I can latter put on a different file and edit as text. Ultimately what I am trying to do is to create audio of the movies and the written simplified chinese to match the audio. This will also add to my learning.

I am also looking for any Chinese audio together with the written material.

One of the most difficult aspects of Chinese (to me) is finding material with audio so that you can practice the right pronunciation.

Perhaps a page here or a topic could be created with written material and audio where we can all share and learn from each other.

Or if anyone knows of any good sources for audio files with respective written material, please let me know.

Thanks again

[roddy]

There's a list of promising looking software here

Roddy

[techie]

That's an "awesome" list of resources. I will check them all out.

Thanks again.

Regards