Curses!!

Someone asked me how to edit a DVD (i.e. Remove the Curse Words/Embarrassing Scenes) and maintain the surround sound. This will be somewhat general as different computers will have different settings that will change certain specifics.

First off, this is a very time consuming endeaver; and if you mention that you have edited a DVD, a DVD that you purchased at the store, a DVD that you keep on  your shelf at home for your own personal viewing, on the shelf right next to the original DVD version of the film—if you ever mention that out loud, or on a blog, etc. the MPAA will bust down your door and take away all your DVDs that you purchased from your favorite retail outlet, and then fine you for "Artistic" impugnment, take away your dog and make you Rot away in prison while your stay-at-home Wife is left to find a way to pay the Mortgage while you're stuck doing laundry for pennies and fear for your self in the shower.

First of all, because DVDs are in MPEG2, they are not an editible format. In MPEG2 you have key frames, and all the frames between those key frames are based on what changed in the frame from that key frame. So the first thing to do is get the video into an editible format.

I use a program called DVDFab—find it yourself, it's of questionable legality and costs... I don't know, it was $50 when I bought it, but I think the price has gone up. You could also probably use, Super or Handbrake—but I'm not an expert at those. I like DVDFab for its "one click" usage.

You want to get the Video into an AVI using a codec that your computer can understand. The audio codec doesn't matter, because you won't be using the audio—turn off the audio in the video file if possible.

Then you need to use the program again to rip an audio stream out of the same source. This should give you an AC3 file. An AC3 file is an audio file with 5.1 audio. Then you want to use BeSweet with the BeSweet GUI to rip 6 Mono WAV files.

Take the AVI file and the 6 Mono Wave files into your video editor (I use Adobe Premiere) and then edit as you please. I have used techniques like: Muting only the Center channel (where you find most of the dialogue), borrowing ambient sound from other channels so it doesn't sound like the audio is cutting out, removeing scenes completely, etc.

When you're done, export the video to Frames, then render those frames as MPEG2.
Then Export all the channels of audio seperately and recombine them into an AC3 file, the software I use is no longer available comercially (it's been implimented into the feature set of a more expensive program, I think)—I understand that you can use a program called HeadAC3he (using a global gain of 6db to get the volume right) I've never used it though.

So now you should have an MPEG2 video file and an AC3 File. Take those into your DVD authoring program of choice (I've used Adobe Encore and DVDLab) Setup menus if you want.

I don't know how to retain Subtitles, but I maintain that someone probably knows how.