Removing a Bad Russian Dub Job

I have a question. There is a youtube video of a show that was made in America in the eighties. When it aired in Russia some years later, they dubbed it in their native language. But the dub job isn’t that great and the underlying English is still there. Is it possible to remove the dubbed Russian and/or extract the English underneath the dub? Here’s a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIZYHQEVWX4

Thanks for any help you can provide. I have tried treating the dub as noise and removing it that way, but it’s hard to isolate enough audio where there’s no English underneath, too. Any other ideas? Thanks so much.

Jack

One of the reliable ways to kill a show is have two different conversations running at the same time.

You might be able to use a “Noise Gate.” Any sound lower than a set volume is muted, but don’t bet a lot of money you’re going to get a theatrically nice result. For one reason, that will also remove much of the background music and theater effects.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Noise_Gate

The problem is a version of #4.

The Four Horsemen of Audio Recording (reliable, time-tested ways to kill your show).
– 1. Echoes and room reverberation (Don’t record the show in your mum’s kitchen).
– 2. Overload and Clipping (Sound that’s recorded too loud is permanently trashed).
– 3. Compression Damage (Never do production in MP3).
– 4. Background Sound (Don’t leave the TV on in the next room).

Koz

Some of the original versions (in English) are on YouTube, e.g. …
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLQi_alGjnxuLG1t100oJzQ/search?query=556

True and I maintain a playlist of episodes or clips in English and even use Movie Maker to take English audio and sync with German or French or Russian videos. But many episodes don’t exist in English and the closest I can find in those cases is these Russian-dubbed videos in which the English survives underneath the dub. Is there no way to remove the Russian on top or extract the English underneath?

Jack

Not with any technology that I’m aware of.
Perhaps someone skilled in lip-reading could help.