I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Thanks in advance for your help.

On 10/15/2004 04:09, John Bullock wrote:

I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

I'll bet Clear Channel Communications wished they could find
such a thing!

"John Bullock" wrote ...
I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Highly unlikely. The first part of the problem, natural speech recognition,
isn't all that great even with multi-GHz computers. And then coming
up with something to replace the words that doesn't sound silly will be
another problem. The people that use the close captioning dialog in DVDs
to mute foul language took advantage of pre-decoded data and produced
a brilliant product.

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message ...
"John Bullock" wrote ...
I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Highly unlikely. The first part of the problem, natural speech recognition,
isn't all that great even with multi-GHz computers. And then coming
up with something to replace the words that doesn't sound silly will be
another problem. The people that use the close captioning dialog in DVDs
to mute foul language took advantage of pre-decoded data and produced
a brilliant product.

Okay, how about if I specify what the contents of the profane wave
file are and what I want the contents of the cleaned up wave file
should be? In other words, I would be prompted to enter name of the
input file, "God Dammit!" for the content of the input file, and "Gosh
Darnit!" for the output. I am not necessarily looking for total
automation with this, so speech recognization to determine what the
words are to begin with would not be required.

"John Bullock" wrote in message
om...
"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"John Bullock" wrote ...
I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Highly unlikely. The first part of the problem, natural speech
recognition,
isn't all that great even with multi-GHz computers. And then coming
up with something to replace the words that doesn't sound silly will be
another problem. The people that use the close captioning dialog in DVDs
to mute foul language took advantage of pre-decoded data and produced
a brilliant product.

Okay, how about if I specify what the contents of the profane wave
file

You would have to have an actual sample of each and every
mention of foul language from each and every film. No two
incidents are close enough (even in the same movie) to use
just one sample of "damn" to search for every instance.

are and what I want the contents of the cleaned up wave file
should be? In other words, I would be prompted to enter name of the
input file, "God Dammit!" for the content of the input file, and "Gosh
Darnit!" for the output. I am not necessarily looking for total
automation with this, so speech recognization to determine what the
words are to begin with would not be required.

It is so labor intensive that it would take less time to just edit
the clean words into the sound track than to make little sample
clips, prepare clean substitutes and have some process "listen"
for them to replace in real-time. There is no great technical
barrier to your scheme, but it is impractical from the labor cost.

"John Bullock" wrote in message
om...
I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Thanks in advance for your help.

..... and a video version, that filters out such offensive peices of anatomy
as JJ's boob and inserts a less subversive image in it's place (maybe a n
M16 or a landmine).

Actually I find the concept of "god dammit" being considered 'profane' as
somwhat bizarre. Who is it that you wish to wrap in cotton wool ?

geoff

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...

"John Bullock" wrote in message
Okay, how about if I specify what the contents of the profane wave
file

You would have to have an actual sample of each and every
mention of foul language from each and every film. No two
incidents are close enough (even in the same movie) to use
just one sample of "damn" to search for every instance.

are and what I want the contents of the cleaned up wave file
should be? In other words, I would be prompted to enter name of the
input file, "God Dammit!" for the content of the input file, and "Gosh
Darnit!" for the output. I am not necessarily looking for total
automation with this, so speech recognization to determine what the
words are to begin with would not be required.

It is so labor intensive that it would take less time to just edit
the clean words into the sound track than to make little sample
clips, prepare clean substitutes and have some process "listen"
for them to replace in real-time. There is no great technical
barrier to your scheme, but it is impractical from the labor cost.

And then there is the context anomally criteria to deal with. How is the
program to discern between the word "bottom" being used in a positional
rather than anatomical usage ?

geoff

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message ...
"John Bullock" wrote in message
om...
"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"John Bullock" wrote ...
I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Highly unlikely. The first part of the problem, natural speech
recognition,
isn't all that great even with multi-GHz computers. And then coming
up with something to replace the words that doesn't sound silly will be
another problem. The people that use the close captioning dialog in DVDs
to mute foul language took advantage of pre-decoded data and produced
a brilliant product.

Okay, how about if I specify what the contents of the profane wave
file

You would have to have an actual sample of each and every
mention of foul language from each and every film. No two
incidents are close enough (even in the same movie) to use
just one sample of "damn" to search for every instance.

are and what I want the contents of the cleaned up wave file
should be? In other words, I would be prompted to enter name of the
input file, "God Dammit!" for the content of the input file, and "Gosh
Darnit!" for the output. I am not necessarily looking for total
automation with this, so speech recognization to determine what the
words are to begin with would not be required.

It is so labor intensive that it would take less time to just edit
the clean words into the sound track than to make little sample
clips, prepare clean substitutes and have some process "listen"
for them to replace in real-time. There is no great technical
barrier to your scheme, but it is impractical from the labor cost.


I'm sorry - I'm not making myself clear. As a hobby, I will
occasionally clean up an R or PG film for my kids and burn it to DVD.
I will actually go through the entire movie and find objectionable
scenes and language and either cut it or mute the audio. Cuts aren't
so bad, but the audio mute is too obvious (their lips keep moving!)
Instead, I would like to locate bad language and replace it with not
so bad language. I am willing to capture an audio clip of each
occurence and would like to run it through some kind of a filter so
that the profanity is removed and replaced with something else. I
have tried to dub my own voice, but it sounds hokey. I thought if I
could find a way to use the original actor's tone, pitch, etc. with
the words I choose it would sound and look much better.

"John Bullock" wrote in message
om

I'm sorry - I'm not making myself clear. As a hobby, I will
occasionally clean up an R or PG film for my kids and burn it to DVD.
I will actually go through the entire movie and find objectionable
scenes and language and either cut it or mute the audio. Cuts aren't
so bad, but the audio mute is too obvious (their lips keep moving!)
Instead, I would like to locate bad language and replace it with not
so bad language. I am willing to capture an audio clip of each
occurence and would like to run it through some kind of a filter so
that the profanity is removed and replaced with something else.

Tain't no such filter at this time. That's one thing that people are trying
to say.

I have tried to dub my own voice, but it sounds hokey.

The obvious thing to do is to use other samples of the same speakers voice.
In order to make the sample fit, you may need to either change its pitch or
change its length or both. Do those sorts of things are standard features of
the better audio editors, such as Audition.

I thought if I
could find a way to use the original actor's tone, pitch, etc. with
the words I choose it would sound and look much better.

Your work is cut out for you. A good audio editor is your tool of choice.

"John Bullock" wrote in message I'm sorry - I'm
not making myself clear. As a hobby, I will
occasionally clean up an R or PG film for my kids and burn it to DVD.
I will actually go through the entire movie and find objectionable
scenes and language and either cut it or mute the audio.

Why not just hold off the showing the movie until they are mature enough to
deal with the real thing without ameliorating the content ?

geoff

"John Bullock" wrote...
I'm sorry - I'm not making myself clear. As a hobby, I will
occasionally clean up an R or PG film for my kids and burn
it to DVD. I will actually go through the entire movie and find
objectionable scenes and language and either cut it or mute the
audio. Cuts aren't so bad, but the audio mute is too obvious
(their lips keep moving!) Instead, I would like to locate bad
language and replace it with not so bad language.

Sorry, that is the state of the art, even for Hollywood.

I am willing to capture an audio clip of each
occurence and would like to run it through some kind of a filter so
that the profanity is removed and replaced with something else. I
have tried to dub my own voice, but it sounds hokey. I thought if I
could find a way to use the original actor's tone, pitch, etc. with
the words I choose it would sound and look much better.

That technology does not exist in 2004. My guess would be that it
is at least 3-5 years away.

"Geoff Wood" wrote ...
Actually I find the concept of "god dammit" being considered 'profane' as
somwhat bizarre. Who is it that you wish to wrap in cotton wool ?

You come off sounding pretty intolerant of conservative people.
Don't misinterpret our tolerance of your liberal views to be
acceptance.

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"Geoff Wood" wrote ...
Actually I find the concept of "god dammit" being considered 'profane' as
somwhat bizarre. Who is it that you wish to wrap in cotton wool ?

You come off sounding pretty intolerant of conservative people.
Don't misinterpret our tolerance of your liberal views to be
acceptance.


OK.

But why would somebody so conservative want to expose their children to
movies full of profanity ?

geoff

On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 00:45:42 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

Actually I find the concept of "god dammit" being considered 'profane' as
somwhat bizarre. Who is it that you wish to wrap in cotton wool ?

You come off sounding pretty intolerant of conservative people.
Don't misinterpret our tolerance of your liberal views to be
acceptance.

You don't take the violence out of a film by cutting the few seconds
when the bullet hits. If anything, you do a moral disservice by
showing the causes but not the consequences.

I find the whole "F***" thing faintly ridiculous. We all know what
the word is. But if you're in a social/religious environment that
obsesses on such things, who am i to object?


I was once asked to make a backing track for a teenage girl who wanted
to sing "Pity the Child" from "Chess". It's about a young man's
problems with being gay. When I questioned whether the girl could
make this song meaningful they said "Oh, it's OK. We changed that
word!" Talk about it, lead up to it but DON'T SAY THE WORD! :-)

I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Thanks in advance for your help.



It isn't done with a program but with ADR.
Can be pretty funny at times such as when Michael J. Fox's line "son of a
bitch" was replaced with " slug in a ditch" for one of the Back to the Future
movies when it was played on television.
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty

On 19 Oct 2004 14:02:31 GMT, (Richard Kuschel)
wrote:

Can be pretty funny at times such as when Michael J. Fox's line "son of a
bitch" was replaced with " slug in a ditch" for one of the Back to the Future
movies when it was played on television.

"Son of a bitch" is considered profane? Where, for goodness' sake?
Do they still hunt witches too? Would they object to "for goodness'
sake" because of its derivation?

(John Bullock) wrote in
om:

Okay, how about if I specify what the contents of the profane wave
file are and what I want the contents of the cleaned up wave file
should be?

Speech recognition is not advanced enough to do this reliably.

--
Lucas Tam )
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/

Laurence Payne wrote in
:

"Son of a bitch" is considered profane? Where, for goodness' sake?
Do they still hunt witches too? Would they object to "for goodness'
sake" because of its derivation?

Go wash your mouth with soap ; )

--
Lucas Tam )
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/

(Richard Kuschel) wrote in
:

Can be pretty funny at times such as when Michael J. Fox's line "son
of a bitch" was replaced with " slug in a ditch" for one of the Back
to the Future movies when it was played on television.

Thankfully the original remained on the DVD release!

--
Lucas Tam )
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/

(John Bullock) wrote in
om:

Okay, how about if I specify what the contents of the profane wave
file are and what I want the contents of the cleaned up wave file
should be?

What do you mean by 'cleaned up', you sick-brained cocksucker?
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Geoff Wood" wrote ...
But why would somebody so conservative want to expose their children to
movies full of profanity ?

There are perfectly good movies that have a couple of completely
gratuitious expletives thrown in just so that the producer can avoid
the "stigma" of a "G" rating.

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 17:35:20 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"Geoff Wood" wrote ...
But why would somebody so conservative want to expose their children to
movies full of profanity ?

There are perfectly good movies that have a couple of completely
gratuitious expletives thrown in just so that the producer can avoid
the "stigma" of a "G" rating.

There are also lots of perfectly good movies that are full of profane
language, such as the Passion of the Christ.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 17:35:20 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"Geoff Wood" wrote ...
But why would somebody so conservative want to expose their
children to
movies full of profanity ?

There are perfectly good movies that have a couple of completely
gratuitious expletives thrown in just so that the producer can
avoid
the "stigma" of a "G" rating.

There are also lots of perfectly good movies that are full of
profane
language, such as the Passion of the Christ.

Which brings up an interesting point. Is it possible to have
unacceptable profanity when the language is aramaic?

Norm Strong

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:45:28 GMT, "normanstrong"
wrote:

Which brings up an interesting point. Is it possible to have
unacceptable profanity when the language is aramaic?

I believe conservatives are happy to provide their own translators
:-)

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 20:59:53 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:45:28 GMT, "normanstrong"
wrote:

Which brings up an interesting point. Is it possible to have
unacceptable profanity when the language is aramaic?

I believe conservatives are happy to provide their own translators

Why does everyone call Puritans 'conservative'? They're just
tight-assed clowns of no particular political affiliation, although
most commonly can be found disturbingly close to extreme right-wing
neo-Nazis in their outlook.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:45:28 GMT, "normanstrong"
wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 17:35:20 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"Geoff Wood" wrote ...
But why would somebody so conservative want to expose their
children to
movies full of profanity ?

There are perfectly good movies that have a couple of completely
gratuitious expletives thrown in just so that the producer can
avoid
the "stigma" of a "G" rating.

There are also lots of perfectly good movies that are full of
profane
language, such as the Passion of the Christ.

Which brings up an interesting point. Is it possible to have
unacceptable profanity when the language is aramaic?

And what did Jesus say? John frikkin' Baptist? :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 05:55:55 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton
wrote:

Why does everyone call Puritans 'conservative'? They're just
tight-assed clowns of no particular political affiliation, although
most commonly can be found disturbingly close to extreme right-wing
neo-Nazis in their outlook.
--

Didn't the op so describe himself?

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 05:55:55 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton
wrote:

Why does everyone call Puritans 'conservative'? They're just
tight-assed clowns of no particular political affiliation, although
most commonly can be found disturbingly close to extreme right-wing
neo-Nazis in their outlook.
--

Didn't the op so describe himself?

No.

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:52:50 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

Why does everyone call Puritans 'conservative'? They're just
tight-assed clowns of no particular political affiliation, although
most commonly can be found disturbingly close to extreme right-wing
neo-Nazis in their outlook.
--

Didn't the op so describe himself?

No.

You're right. It was one of his supporters. You. :-)

"You come off sounding pretty intolerant of conservative people.
Don't misinterpret our tolerance of your liberal views to be
acceptance. "

My favorite is from the clean version of "The Usual Suspects":

"Hand me the keys, you fairy godmother..."

Richard Kuschel wrote:


I am looking for a piece of software (free would be best!) that will
take an audio file (wav, mp3, etc.) and convert profane language to a
"G" rating. For instance, I would like to change an actor saying "God
Dammit!" to "Gosh Darnit!". Does such a program exist?

Thanks in advance for your help.



It isn't done with a program but with ADR.
Can be pretty funny at times such as when Michael J. Fox's line "son of a
bitch" was replaced with " slug in a ditch" for one of the Back to the Future
movies when it was played on television.
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty

My favorite was Jackie Brown being ADR'd with mother's father's frozen
this and that.

Edwin