Hardcoded vs soft subtitles: which one do you have?
Most of the confusion around removing subtitles comes from the fact that there are two very different kinds. Soft subtitles are stored as a separate track inside the video file. Your player can switch them on and off, and the picture underneath is untouched. Hardcoded subtitles, also called burned-in or embedded subtitles, are drawn into the pixels of every frame. There is nothing to switch off, because the text is part of the image.
A quick way to tell: open the video in a player and look for a subtitle or caption menu. If you can turn the text off there, it is a soft track. If the text stays no matter what you choose, it is burned in. FrameWipe checks the file for you when you open it, so you do not have to guess.
Removing a soft subtitle track without re-encoding
If the subtitles are a separate track, FrameWipe removes the track in one click. Because the picture is not touched, the video is not re-encoded: the video and audio streams are kept exactly as they were, and the job finishes quickly.
A tool that only repaints the picture cannot do this. It treats every video as if the text were burned in: repaint the area, encode the whole video again, and lose a little quality, even when the subtitles could have been dropped without touching a pixel.
Removing hardcoded subtitles and captions from the picture
Burned-in subtitles have to be painted out frame by frame. FrameWipe finds the subtitle band, and you choose the time range to clean. While processing, it first borrows real pixels from neighbouring frames where the background behind the text is visible, then fills whatever is left with background that matches the surroundings.
- The subtitle area is detected for you; you can adjust it.
- Only the time range you choose is processed.
- Progress shows real processed frames, and you can cancel at any point.
- Clean export: nothing is added to your video.
Why use an offline subtitle remover instead of an online tool
Online subtitle removers ask you to upload the video, wait in a queue and download the result. That is fine for a public clip, but not for client work, interviews or family footage. FrameWipe runs on your Mac or Windows PC. There is no account, no upload, and no copy of your video on anyone else's server.
The only time FrameWipe uses the network is if you choose to download the optional Quality model (LaMa, about 200 MB). Subtitle removal does not need it.
- The area under burned-in subtitles is reconstructed background, not the original footage that was hidden.
- Where the picture behind the subtitles moves fast or in complex ways, you may see some flicker or ghosting.
- Removing a subtitle track only works when the subtitles really are a separate track. Burned-in text needs the frame-by-frame process.
- FrameWipe opens MP4, MOV and WebM video files. MKV is not supported yet.